Aerospace and High-Tech Export Upsurge Predicted

A senior State Department official said Tuesday that high-technology and aerospace companies should benefit from the Bush Administration’s recent decision to relax restrictions on technology exports to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The new export rules--the result of an easing in East-West tensions--will be effective Sept. 1.

During the past year the Administration has reduced by about two-thirds the number of high-tech products that require export licenses for shipping to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, said Allan Wendt, senior representative for strategic technology policy.

The new rules cover a wide range of technological goods. County companies will most likely be affected by regulations governing computers, computer parts, commercial aerospace components and avionics equipment.

Wendt spoke to a group of industry executives and government officials in Irvine attending a daylong symposium on U.S. export controls, sponsored by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. He said he anticipates a 70% decline in export licenses nationally because of the new rules.

He said most of the products to be decontrolled are already available from nations that are not members of the 17-nation Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, known as Cocom, which administers export controls for the United States and its Western allies. Wendt was the chief U.S. negotiator during a recent round of Cocom trade talks in Paris.

“Companies should study the list and export procedures carefully (because) the core list does not establish a red line,” he said.

Though many products on the list have potential military applications, he added, companies should expect no export problems as long as they can show that the products will be used for civilian purposes.

In 1990, Cocom approved 1,600 export licenses for equipment worth $1.7 billion for shipment to the Soviet Union, Wendt said.

That figure should rise this year, he said, because of President Bush’s pledge to increase exports of energy-related equipment and technology to the Soviet Union.

Some advanced computer components--such as high-speed disk drives, high-performance graphics and signal-processing equipment--still cannot by exported to the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe, said Michael W. Liikala, director of the Bureau of Export Administration’s regional office in Newport Beach.

“The good news is that there are fewer products subject to licensing, and several of the avionics manufacturing companies here will clearly benefit,” he said.

“The bad news,” he said, “is there are new regulations that require Orange County businesses to be re-educated as to what countries and products are sensitive for export control.”