vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #147 / Business / Reading article...

With one exhibition over and three more scheduled this year, krai officials are hoping to wake Primorye defense companies from their post-Soviet advertising slumber.

Manufacturers that once paid their bills with Soviet military funds are struggling, and a July 23 to 27 exhibition, titled Conversion, War Equipment, and Means of Defense and Safety, helped to show them that it's time to start paying attention to consumers, rather than just the military machine, said American Consul General Jane Miller Floyd.

"The U.S. is very interested in the process of Russian military reforms," she said. "Part of the conversion process is to make goods that can compete in the international market. They've got to start somewhere."

But Vice Governor Konstantin Tolstoshein, who showed up at the exhibition and spoke at a press conference to kick it off, isn't only interested in starting. The vice governor is already thinking about complete economic recovery for the developing military producers.

"Our purpose is to fill the Russian market with the most up-to-date equipment and products made in Primorye by 2000," he said.

Other krai officials, however, saw the exhibition as a needed boost to a languishing process. "We've got nothing to be proud of yet," said Vladimir Titkov, General Manager of DalPribor, a hydro-acoustic equipment manufacturer. "The process of conversion, or convulsion, has lasted for five years and nothing significant has happened. The main thing is to invest in companies, and the purpose of the exhibition is to suggest that you need to invest, that these companies need our investments," he said. Some companies at the exhibition displayed new goods, hoping to enter the consumer market. Zvezda, a ship repair yard that used to get most of its business from the Pacific Fleet, offered sausage samples. Zvezda representative Sergei Mikhailov said that if foreigners were interested in a product, Zvezda was prepared to sell it. "Our purpose is to move into domestic food and upholstery markets," he said. "We can offer very cheap prices."

Other companies aren't changing the goods they sell, but the markets they sell them in. Progress, which makes the well-known Black Shark attack helicopter, as well as fighter jets and non-military planes, is looking abroad for new clients.

"We have potential clients in the Philippines, Taiwan, and Africa interested in purchasing our equipment," said Progress Assistant Marketing Director Valery Rozenblum.

Tolstoshein also said both the United States and South Korea were interested in military equipment. Both the South Korean and American consuls general, who attended the event, denied the statements. Many at the exhibition felt lukewarm about its usefulness. "It's good for directors to start thinking about the future," said Vladislav Zaitsev, director of the Vladivostok Branch of Toko Bank. "This event is a means of showing that the economy is not at a standstill."

He added, however, that "it's not good that there's no opportunity to sign a contract on the spot." Others didn't think the event was groundbreaking at all. A man who gave his name as Albert and said he owed a Primorye furniture company scoffed, "I came to see something new, but I didn't see anything." One attendee, however, openly admired what he saw. North Korean trade representative Pak Bin Oh said that he was interested in everything.