East-West Trade

The New Marco Polos

   Now that U.S. trade with the Soviet Union and most other Communist nations is running at the highest level since World War II, many well-known companies are getting into the act; Occidental Petroleum, Boeing, ITT, Tenneco, Texas Eastern Transmission and dozens of others. But there are smaller, independent toilers in Eastern vineyards who so far have remained relatively obscure. Sometimes acting as middlemen for big deals, sometimes hunting up new products and processes to sell on their own, these new Marco Polos have perhaps done more to expand the frontiers of East-West trade than the emissaries of giant corporations. Familiar with the workings of Sojuzchimexport, Stankiomport, and other mystifyingly complicated Soviet state enterprises, they have been putting together some of the most imaginative deals since William Henry Seward made Alaska a Russian export. Among them:

   Robert Ross has sold $11 million worth of products from Communist countries in the U.S. since his first trip to Moscow in 1970. As head to East European Domestic International Sales Corp., based in Manhattan, he has another $100 million worth of contracts under discussion. Acting mostly as a buyer, Ross represents 65 American firms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, he is sole sales agent in the U.S. for the Soviet auto and electronics industries and Rumanian auto and petroleum exports. This year he introduced a $3,195 Jeep-like Rumanian vehicle into the U.S. He is talking with executives of Westinghouse and General Electric about distributing Soviet vacuum tubes in the U.S., and he plans to import 7,000,000 gallons of Rumanian gasoline in December. Most of his deals are financed by U.S. banks and the Government's Export-Import Bank. Because of the Communist's shortage of hard currency, Ross thinks that there is a better future in barter arrangements. He is trying to put together a swap between Scott Research, an American producer of automobile anti-pollution equipment, and the Rumanian auto industry, which must equip its U.S.-bound vehicles to meet 1975 emission standards.