Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia

For more information contact:
Rick Austin
Lion’s Share Entertainment, Inc.
1000 Universal Studios Plaza
Orlando, FL 32819
407-224-6431

If you haven’t thought about doing business in Russia- you should.

The people as a whole have good values, and a strong work ethic, and the desire for better things and improving their lives, but to date there has been a lack of opportunity for self improvement, since the current economy has been driven more by commodity product sales that fluctuate according to world demand, than by technology that can command stable prices for value added products.

Russia is becoming more "Westernized" every day, with a pent up consumer demand and preference for western products.

Russia’s attitude toward western business relationships has changed for the better over the last few years. Previously Russia as a country had been used to being able to "throw its weight around" and force it’s will upon the smaller more dependent countries of the former Soviet Union. Today that is not the case. With the growing political and economic independence of the other countries in the former Soviet Union, and with some of the countries being able to join the European Union, the hand writing is on the wall for Russia. This is a country that must now "play ball" in order to improve its economy and grow in the world market.

Therein the country is looking for opportunities to export, import and to develop business relationships and partnerships with western companies that can help it develop infrastructure in the areas of construction, engineering, health care, security, manufacturing, business management, technology, and marketing to sell its products across world markets.

In line with opening its borders to the west, and with new business opportunity on the horizon, Russia is also developing its tourism and food service industries to provide western concepts to tourists and to roll these out to its own population. There are now a number of hospitality operators that have multiple franchised food service concepts, and are looking for more to expand their business.

The greatest "barrier to entry" for Western companies has been more of a "self-imposed" psychological one, rather than anything external. As a closed society for decades, the Russian language and culture tend to be unfamiliar with Westerners, so this has been cause for many western companies to ignore this potentially huge market in favor of simpler expansions into third world countries with a familiar language.

Therein lies the great opportunity. Russia is at this time a virtually untapped market, and the first ones in, will reap the greatest rewards, will develop the strongest relationships and will capture the most market share, the soonest. Large packaged goods and consumer products companies are already making huge in-roads to the Russian market and population. In fact, it is not unusual to see many products that we buy here in the west now being promoted on Russian television.

As a result of recent Russian business dealings, Rick Austin Executive Producer of Lion’s Share Entertainment (located at Universal Studios in Florida), has seen a tremendous opportunity and is leading the charge to bring American business to the Russian market.

Mr. Austin is leading a trade mission for one week to Moscow and St. Petersburg. He is enlisting the interest of private and public companies now, in conjunction with help from Enterprise Florida, the US Department of Commerce Commercial Services Division, The US State Department, US AID, The Eastern European Linkage Institute, The World Trade Center and several departments within the University of Central Florida.

In fact, as a direct result of this mission, the University of Central Florida Executive MBA program is developing a joint certificate/degree program with a similar University in Russia, to provide cross cultural business training and student exchanges from both countries that will teach executives how to do business in each other’s markets.

Mr. Austin’s group is open to discussions with any company that might have an interest in participating in this trade mission and will set up meetings specifically geared toward the mission participants with Russian companies and with both US and Russian government agencies in Russia during the mission, to provide contacts for business relationships and technology transfer opportunities.

In particular, the mission hopes to bring a health care provider and a medical technology based company, establish additional sister university relationships, bring an architectural firm to provide services into the medical and institutional market sectors, an engineering company to provide services to Russia for its growth in infrastructure, a hospitality and food service franchiser, media, entertainment, and marketing companies as well as and other companies interested in exporting or importing technology and services in order to build their own business here in the United States.

There will only be one participant from the United States allowed per category, so there is a real opportunity for the participant to establish high value relationships and to capture market share in this very large market.

The US Department of Commerce (through their Gold Key program) will set up a series of meetings in each city for each trade mission participant with prospective Russian partners, importers, and exporters, based on the criteria set up by the participating company.

Lion’;s Share Entertainment will be filming the trip and the participants before, during and after the mission to Russia as a reality television documentary. Lion’s Share and the Discovery Networks are now talking about participating in the mission and partnering to air the program on one of their networks.

To be involved in the mission and the television program, the only cost to participants is that they must pay their own way on this mission. The costs for airfare, visas, ground transportation, interpreters, setting up individual appointments by the US Department of Commerce, and meals are estimated to be approximately $7,500 per person for the week.

If you have serious interest in participating in this mission, contact Rick Austin at raustin@lions-share-ent.com (or saucers@attglobal.net) (407-224-6431).