African Entrepreneurship Record

In August 1887, the British Parliament passed an insulting trademark law provision that specifically stipulated that goods imported from Germany must be marked "Made in Germany" to distinguish inferior German goods from high-quality British goods.

Putting down the newspaper in his hand, Ernst felt a little emotional. Some things would not change just because of the intrusion of East Africa, such as the latest Trademark Law of the United Kingdom.

Generally speaking, the changes in the UK's trademark law are due to pressure from the rapid increase in industrial strength of countries such as Germany. It is a suppression of late-developing countries by advanced countries.

Even if it were another country, it would be the same. As long as it poses a threat to the United Kingdom, it will still enjoy the treatment that Germany has now. Therefore, this is an inevitable trend in history, unless there is a stupid prime minister in the United Kingdom and lobbying Parliament to let Germany go.

This situation is almost impossible to happen. After all, the British are famous for their stability now. Unless there is an "anti-intellectual" wave in the entire society like in the previous life, and then kidnap these politicians through the "democratic system", it is not popular in British society now. "Lies" prevail.

Talking about the impact of the provisions of this bill, let’s not talk about the emotional harm caused by this straight-to-the-point humiliation to the Germans, but East Africa, as a “copycat country”, did feel the cold wind.

After all, many products in East Africa are said to be knock-off versions of Germany. For the UK, East African industrial products are the knock-offs of knock-offs.

Regarding the formulation of standardization, the Hechingen Consortium and East African state-owned enterprises should be viewed separately. Most of the companies under the Hechingen Consortium are innovative enterprises and attach great importance to product quality.

However, state-owned enterprises, which are the backbone of East Africa's national economy, have great deficiencies in this regard, especially the "re-copycat" of the "copycat country" Germany.

There is no way around this. The construction of East Africa's industrial system began in the 1970s, and a complete set of industrial machinery from Germany and Austria was basically imported from scratch. Therefore, it is inevitable to embark on this path.

The process of creating an industry from scratch is the same as when victims of a famine are hungry and do not choose what to eat. If they fill their stomachs first, those who are really particular will have long since starved to death.

Therefore, the current attack on "German goods" by the UK is actually an indirect attack on "East African goods". Moreover, German technology updates quickly, so East Africa may suffer greater losses than Germany.

"What the British said doesn't sound good, but it's basically the truth. For Germany's large and medium-sized enterprises and the German government, this is a very shameful political and economic event, which has had an extremely bad impact on the country's image. , and it also marks that the two countries’ competition for the commodity market has entered a new stage. We can even consider this event to be the beginning of the shift of the world’s factory.” Ernst told officials from the industrial sector.

Don't look at the negative impact of this "insult". In fact, it also represents the British recognition of "helplessness" towards German industrial competition, which is a sign of being pushed into a hurry.

Since Britain led the first industrial revolution, Britain is still the "world's factory" today. But now Britain's competitors have emerged, including Germany, the United States, France... The rise of a number of industrial countries has posed a huge threat to British industry and commerce. , and Germany is the "outstanding bird" that the British want to beat.

Regardless of quality, German products are indeed cheap, and Germany’s industrial production capacity has been greatly improved, and its shipment volume is also large. With the addition of “plagiarism”, “OEM” and other means, the appearance can be restored one to one. "Authentic".

So when the British bought "domestic products" and then exposed their secrets as soon as they used them, Ernst could completely imagine the scene of "swearing" at home.

"Our export companies are essentially part of the German commodity export trading system, so they will inevitably be affected by this incident. This is a good warning to us. Domestic standardization of commodity quality should also be put back on the agenda to change the international Society’s stereotypes about our products!”

Ernst attached great importance to standardization, but East Africa was unable to promote such a thing before. After all, machines were imported from Europe, so things could only be done according to other people's rules. Moreover, the talent pool in East Africa at that time was obviously unable to promote East African industry towards independence. The path to innovation.

East Africa actually does not have this capability now, but East Africa should have sufficient reserves of basic technical personnel. On the one hand, international students are returning home, and on the other hand, the number of middle school students is increasing.

However, there is a big difference between theoretical learning and actual conditions. For the younger generation to directly start transforming East Africa's industrial system, I am afraid there will still be a "frustrating" road ahead.

"Based on the current situation in East Africa, it should not be difficult for the government and enterprises to establish relevant standard-setting institutions, especially to assess East African commodity standards based on the original commodity classification."

Prior to this, East Africa did establish commodity grading at the primary enterprise level, but this commodity grading was based on the sacrifice of national products.

To compete with the international market, we can only select products with excellent quality and sell them in the international market, while leaving defective products for domestic digestion.

But now, for the people of East Africa, they still feel that supply exceeds demand. This has a lot to do with production capacity. East Africa is not an industrial country now. In addition to the low urbanization rate, the number of industries is also a big problem.

In the early 19th century, the standard for industrial countries was that the urbanized population should reach more than 30%. However, until now, the urbanization level in East Africa is less than 20% (including the black population). However, if you remove the black people, East Africa will immediately change. Much prettier.

Moreover, many cities in East Africa should be regarded as mixed agricultural and industrial residential strongholds, especially in the west and north. Many cities are only created by administrative means rather than by industrialization.

Currently, the only countries recognized as having completed industrialization are the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States. The rest, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Tsarist Russia, Spain, East Africa, and Japan, are all catching up.

Of course, East Africa is developing most rapidly in several industrial fields where it is fully developing, mainly steel, electricity and automobiles, and food processing industries.

A negative example is that the development of the textile industry and machinery manufacturing industry is relatively weak, and East Africa needs to import from the Far East and Germany every year.

"To formulate a standardization agency, we need to discuss and communicate with royal enterprises and several large foreign-funded enterprises. They have rich experience in this area."

Royal enterprises and large foreign-funded enterprises plus the Hechingen Bank are the Hechingen Foundation. The Hechingen Foundation is the earliest organization to formulate product standards.

This is related to the industries engaged in by the Hechingen Consortium. State-owned enterprises in East Africa cannot meet the conditions of the Hechingen Consortium, but they are still more standard than many European and American small business workshops.

However, there are many enterprises run by local governments in East Africa, and the quality of their products varies. However, in addition to the textile industry and food processing industry, they are also the backbone of East Africa's light industry.

"The Ministry of Industry will take the lead, with supervision and guidance from other foreign-invested enterprises in East Africa, to form an organization to guide the production quality of goods in East Africa, and it will be named the East African Standardization Association."

The East African Standardization Association is actually a replica of the previous German Standardization Association, and the previous German Standardization Association was not established until 1917.

It was just a non-governmental organization at the beginning, and was later incorporated by the German government. In East Africa, the state directly promoted the completion of this matter. This is also the difference between the two.