G-Tech

Not the registration of a British flying machine but the name of two EU companies, one in UK-Worcester and one in DE-Stetten. Worcester was too far for me to go and Blip so went for Stetten about 6km away, a village with 1400 residents. but with a large business Sauter which I think is the biggest European official manufacturer of front hitches for many tractor companies-John Deere, New Holland etc etc

I went to Stetten today as I had seen a report last night on Sky News about small and medium-sized UK companies and their views on the referendum. One of the company bosses interviewed was from a company called G-tech. The MD, Nick Grey, gave a very vague answer and was for OUT on both private & business grounds. He claimed leaving the EU would mean fewer payments and red tape. Intrigued me: what fewer payments or red tape? Nothing came to mind as to what he could mean, my first thought was:- but surely it's about increasing sales and doesn't that mean a UK exit could result in more customs formalities and perhaps regulations which certainly won't get less as any future exports to EU would require products to adhere to EU regulations. I would have loved to have asked him. The website looks interesting as does the product. Get the impression there may be links with Europe but no direct mention - USA and China look like their markets.

So Googled "G-tech" and without looking, hit the first result and landed on a G-tech business just down the road. A small but very professional looking car tuning & race preparation business concentrated on small Fiat (Pope Mobile!), Alfa and Renault cars. Seemingly very big in the scene, in Europe and Japan. The website seems to be in the course of being expanded to include English but they do in the text especially say, please contact us, we speak German, English and Italian.

So I thought I would do the morning walk with the dogs in the beech woods above the village. Luckily it stayed dry and apart from having to climb over a few very large fallen trees from the storms last week, it was very pleasant, if cool. By evening we had snow!

Then stopped by the G-tech building but it was a combination of lunch and all doors closed against the weather. So my hope of speaking to the owner didn't happen. Not sure but suspect it probably has a dozen or so employees. The company was founded in 2001, exactly the same as G-tech in the UK.

Shame I couldn't find out more and a German small business view of doing business in the rest of the EU and world. It also occurred to me due to the current launches of the F1 teams, that the car racing preparation business has been firmly in UK hands based mainly in the Silverstone area, I think Mercedes is still there. A neighbour in the '80s in Sussex was an engineer at McLaren somewhere in the Surrey area.

However, I do know Toyota has for a long time had its rally car business in Cologne and I wonder what might happen to this specialised UK dominated skill? Will Red Bull, Mercedes & co still want the hassle if customs and travel problems? Spanish, southern France, Italian tracks would have even better testing conditions than Northampton.

A bit frustrated at not having the opportunity to ask Mr Grey about his concerns or try to help him overcome his "imagined" fears. Shame.

I think my next Blip might concentrate on the much-acclaimed shout that the UK NHS is under threat from the EU. It seems the reports I see on TV don't quite match with the politician's claims of it being the best in the world. This is not a qualitative but quantitative statement. Germany has it's quality problems.  There are some wonderful statistics on the EU site and that shows the UK has one of the lowest ratios of hospital beds, a third of Germany's for instance and the same for personnel. I think it's less than in Greece. I suspect I might need to use the German NHS tomorrow. not exactly A&E but along those lines. Not serious, just annoying and may mean hospitalization. My main fear is that within an hour of walking in the docs offices, I will be in hospital and fighting to rearrange to wait until it suits my diary, sometime next week.

Oh and if you want to hear a German have problems pronouncing English try asking them to say Worcester Sauce and/or Schweppes.