Systems integrator ELKO Technology has made a major sale to the State Committee of Property Management – Goskomimuschestvo. The deal was for seven local area networks and office equipment in Moscow, St Petersburg, Kursk and Vladimir. The project is to put an organisation in place to register the ownership and issue of shares called the Registration and Clearing Organisation and is worth $300,000. The project is in conjunction with accountants KMPG and a US government grant. Under the terms of the grant 80% of equipment must come from a US company. ELKO selected Gateway 2000 Inc hardware. Application software will be developed by the Russian company Germes Invest. Kvant and Cherus have also won contracts stemming from the same project. In May the Moscow Stock Centre, a subsidiary of Olma Investment, received $70,000 worth of Hewlett-Packard Co equipment supplied by Cherus and Alfa Capital $100,000 worth of IBM Corp equipment, most of which came from Kvant. The Russian securities market has existed since 1991 when many banks and exchanges were set up. It has been boosted by the privatisation process, 20,000 large enterprises have been privatised in the last 12 months, but it has been closed to foreign investors since there is no reliable transaction information on purchases and ownership. In October 1993 Goskomimuschestvo invited KPMG, Deloitte & Touche to help organise financial and technical standards to open the market to foreign investors. KPMG, Deloitte & Touche are responsible for a project to link organisations in Moscow and St Petersburg this year.
