100 pieces of enterprise "heirloom", pay tribute to the century-old style!
Since May 11, CCTV Financial Channel has launched a 100-episode micro-documentary "Red Finance and Reliquary 100 Years". Since the establishment of the industry for a hundred years, the party secretaries and chairmen of the hundred enterprises have personally appeared on camera, and they have brought the "heirlooms" of their respective enterprises to the studio site, telling the little-known touching stories behind the relics, tracing the red financial imprint and exploring the chinese economic context.
Today's eighteenth episode tells you about "a trademark to the world"
Name of the relic: "Red Eight In" tea trademark
Inheritor of the relic: COFCO Group
Date of the relic: 1951
Imprint: The first tea trademark of the People's Republic of China
Narrator: Lu Jun, Secretary of the Party Group and Chairman of COFCO Group
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In 1919, Wu Juenong was admitted to Japan as a "Gengbu International Student" with excellent results, and was selected to study tea at the "Makinohara" National Tea Experimental Field in Shizuoka Prefecture, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan. After returning to China, he began to put into practice his ideal of revitalizing agriculture and reviving tea, and under the leadership of Wu Juenong, the tea industry "gradually reached the upward trend of the economic and cultural life of tea households".
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, all people with lofty ideals threw themselves into the ranks of resisting Japan and saving the country. Wu Juenong, who was not confused for forty years, was in charge of the tea production and marketing work of the Trade Committee of the National Government at that time, and the war required huge financial and material support, and one of the main sources of income in the fight against the Japanese at that time was the trade income from tea. After the fall of Shanghai, China's largest foreign tea trade market at the time, Wu Juenong struggled to find other ways to open up overseas tea trade. In 1938, Wu Juenong was actively invited by Zou Bingwen, then a member of the government's Trade Commission, to lead a group of tea people to Wuhan to start negotiations on trade with the Soviet Union, and exchanged tea with the Soviet Union for equipment and weapons urgently needed for the War of Resistance. The negotiations worked out, but where was the tea?
At this time, most of China was in flames, And China's largest tea export market, Shanghai, had fallen, and Wu Juenong had to lead people to run under the eyes of the enemy, risk his life to collect tea in various tea areas, contact the establishment of provincial tea management offices (bureaus), and in the chaotic situation, process thousands of quintals of scattered tea leaves scattered in the hands of tea mountains, tea gardens, and retail households in various provinces and cities into finished box tea, and then carry out unified trade and sales, which greatly improved the efficiency of trade and overseas sales to the Soviet Union. In a year's time, they not only exceeded the barter contract to the Soviet Union, but also exported tea from Western countries to exchange a lot of foreign exchange, making a great contribution to supporting the anti-Japanese resistance.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, Wu Juenong fought silently with "tea to save the country". On November 23, 1949, The First State-owned Professional Company of New China, China Tea Company, was established, and Wu Juenong, who was then vice minister of agriculture, served as the general manager. Although New China had been established at this time, many countries still carried out a "blockade and embargo" against China. The resumption of foreign trade and the import of strategic materials became one of the key points of China's economic construction in New China at that time. Tea, the commodity with the most traditional Advantages of China, has become an important means to break through the trade blockade and obtain foreign exchange.
In 1951, China Tea Company established the first tea trademark in New China - "Red Eight Zhong" trademark, the trademark is designed as a green "tea" word in the middle, surrounded by the red "Zhong" character, representing the green tea produced by red China, with the meaning of "Chinese tea is sold in all directions". "Red Eight Middle School" also lived up to expectations, successfully went out of the country, and for the first time set up a banner for the Chinese brand of new China. During this period, along with tea, there were also agricultural and sideline products such as rice, wheat, cotton, canned food, and meat products.
By the time the second five-year plan was completed, the "Red Eight Middle" tea exports earned a total of 140 million US dollars, all of which were used to repay the state's loans for the development of industry and the former Soviet Union, providing strong support for the industrial development of new China.
In 1979, 40 years after the reform and opening up, tea productivity increased rapidly. In 1989, tea exports rose to 204,000 tons, ranking second in the world. By 2019, COFCO exported nearly 5 million tons of tea, with an export amount of nearly 7 billion US dollars, opened up tea markets in more than 100 countries and regions around the world, and created dozens of standard tea numbers in the international market, such as the main brand with "China Tea" as the core.
The trademark of "Red Eight Middle School" is just the beginning, and today, COFCO Group has created a well-known international brand trademark in the agricultural and grain industry such as rice, noodles, oil, sugar, cotton, meat, milk, wine, etc. It is this small trademark that condenses the development process of China's import and export trade, and together constitutes the most beautiful landscape of China's brand market economy.
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(Edited by Sun Yonghui)