BICC Data Networks Ltd has won a series of orders worth a total of UKP3m with the SPEC Group, which specialises in trade in a number of sectors with the Soviet Union. The deal, which will initially see BICC Data fibre optic equipment being used to link 18 buildings over a one mile industrial site in the Crimea, is, like all high technology exports, subject to CoCom approval this has meant that the SPEC Group, and its Soviet-based installation and support arm, Spectrum, have had to receive a licence for any prospective export before any order can be made from BICC Data; despite the inevitable delays, BICC says that work is now ready to go ahead in the Crimea. Meanwhile, SPEC has found a less problematic way of getting hard currency out of the Soviet Union by setting up a film company – its first two productions, Lost in Siberia and Assassin of the Tsar, have apparently received good reviews and are presumably not subject to anything as rigorous as the CoCom list.
