1 William D. Forrester, president of the U.S.-U.S.S.R.
2 Trade and Economic Council, has a warning for U.S. companies trying to do business in the Soviet Union. 'It's an extremely complex market, and you have to be prepared to make a big commitment,' Mr. Forrester says. 'We are not trying to encourage everyone.'
3 Undeterred by such words of caution, corporate America is flocking to Moscow, lured by a huge untapped market and Mikhail Gorbachev's attempt to overhaul the Soviet economy.
4 Doing business with the Russians, once the pursuit of a handful of hardened veterans, has become the goal of such major companies as General Motors Corp., Federal Express Corp. and Procter & Gamble Co., as well as a cluster of smaller firms.
5 Reflecting the new-found interest, more than 140 U.S. companies are taking part in a Moscow exhibition organized by Mr. Forrester's trade group.
6 But while U.S. interest may be big and growing, the difficulties that have stymied deals in the past show no sign of abating.
7 Alongside the old problems of a non-convertible currency and an inpenetrable bureaucracy, Western business executives must now grapple with new complexities linked to perestroika, the restructuring of the Soviet economy.
8 Executives say Mr. Gorbachev's moves to break up the government's foreign trade monopoly have created uncertainties as well as opportunities.
9 Changing legislation has opened the field to thousands of inexperienced Soviet players, many who promise more than they can deliver.
10 And some foreign firms are finding that even when they manage to overcome such hurdles, their ventures now have to be endorsed by such unpredictable bodies as the Soviet parliament and the governments of the nation's republics.
11 'You have to go out to all your constituents,' says James H. Giffen, who is spearheading the most ambitious attempt by U.S. firms to break into the Soviet market, involving investment of more than $5 billion in some two dozen joint ventures.
12 As part of that attempt, by the American Trade Consortium, Mr. Giffen says he spends a lot of time lobbying.
13 Growing public fears about the Soviet environment is one new factor affecting some joint-venture plans.
14 Over the past two years, Soviet ministries have been talking to international firms, including Occidental Petroleum Co. and Combustion Engineering Inc. of the U.S., Montedison S.p.
15 A. of Italy and several Japanese groups, about jointly building and operating several big petrochemical plants.
16 The plans have come under fire from Soviet environmentalists, and officials say many are likely to be scaled back or dropped.
17 Whatever the difficulties, Mr. Gorbachev remains committed to increasing foreign trade.
18 For political as well as economic reasons, U.S. companies are at the top of his priorities -- a point he underscored by spending two hours walking around the U.S. trade show last week.
19 Talking to a small group of U.S. executives afterwards, Mr. Gorbachev appeared impatient for a big expansion in U.S.-Soviet trade, which now amounts to a meager $3 billion annually.
20 The U.S. ranks fourth of countries that have concluded joint ventures, behind West Germany, Finland and Italy.
21 According to several people present at the meeting, Mr. Gorbachev also supported the idea of concluding several commercial accords with the U.S., possibly at his next summit meeting with President Bush.
22 Judging by the crush at the exhibition, deprived Soviet consumers are more than ready for U.S. products.
23 Hundreds of people lined up every day at the Colgate-Palmolive Co. stand to receive a free tube of toothpaste, a commodity in chronically short supply here.
24 And unruly crowds at RJR Nabisco Inc. 's booth almost knocked over a glass showcase in the rush to get a free Camel cigarette sticker.
25 Some U.S. products are filtering into the Soviet market under an emergency import program.
26 Both Colgate and Procter & Gamble have received big orders for toothpaste, soap and detergents.
27 The American Trade Consortium says it is planning to ship some $500 million of consumer goods, financed by bank credits, in the first few months of next year.
28 But the current Soviet purchasing spree may be a one-time affair.
29 The goal of most U.S. firms -- joint ventures -- remains elusive.
30 Because the Soviet ruble isn't convertible into dollars, marks and other Western currencies, companies that hope to set up production facilities here must either export some of the goods to earn hard currency or find Soviet goods they can take in a counter-trade transaction.
31 International competition for the few Soviet goods that can be sold on world markets is heating up, however.
32 Shelley M. Zeiger, an entrepreneur from New Jersey who buys Soviet porcelain and 'matryoshka' nesting dolls for export to the U.S., says West German companies already have snapped up much of the production of these items.
33 Seeking to overcome the currency problems, Mr. Giffen's American Trade Consortium, which comprises Chevron Corp., RJR, Johnson & Johnson, Eastman Kodak Co., and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., has concocted an elaborate scheme to share out dollar earnings, largely from the revenues of a planned Chevron oil project.
34 Several medical concerns, including Pfizer Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Colgate and Abbott Laboratories intend to pursue a similar consortium approach.
35 'It's hard to invest capital here on the same basis as investing in other countries,' says Dennis A. Sokol, president of Medical Service Partners Inc., who is putting the medical consortium together.
36 Some U.S. entrepreneurs operate on a smaller scale.
37 One group seeks to publish a U.S.-Soviet medical journal in conjunction with the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Health.
38 According to Richard P. Mills, a Boston-based official of the U.S. partner, 10,000 copies of the quarterly will be printed in Russian from next year.
39 It will be financed by advertisements from U.S. companies and by simultaneous publication of an English-language journal containing details of Soviet medical advancements.
40 'We found a market niche,' Mr. Mills boasts. 'It's truly entrepreneurial.'

Doing business with the Russians , once the pursuit of a handful of hardened veterans , has become the goal of such major companies as General Motors Corp . , Federal Express Corp . and Procter & Gamble Co . , as well as a cluster of smaller firms .
hardened veterans ,
How were these hardened veterans able to do business in the USSR?