Finance and Technology Transfer

Abstract

This chapter highlights finance and technology transfer in late 19th and early 20th centuries. The lack of historical perspective is a striking feature of all studies on technology transfer to developing countries. Yet a comparison between technology transfer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and technology transfer will reveal strong similarities. This is particularly true with reference to the financial burden assumed by developing countries that import technology from Western industrialized countries. In the past, technology transfer was referred to as westernization or, more recently, modernization. In the 19th century, most countries in Latin America, Asia, and North Africa were striving to promote their development and to narrow the widening gap with the West by importing arms, machinery, and technical assistance in almost every field, also granting concessions to Western firms to develop local services and exploit natural resources. In North Africa and Ottoman Asia, the first attempts at modernization can be traced back to the early nineteenth century with Muhammad Ali's experience in Egypt, Khaireddine in Tunis, and the Tanzimat movement in the Ottoman Empire.