Trade Fair Opens

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 13

Trade Fair Opens

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) BRNO (Czechoslovakia), September 16.

. ’riie international Brno ‘F®" an important show-case East _ West rade, opened r» r huslneM in Brno yesterday, a ßDar . ently unaffected by last month’s invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The fair was postponed earlier this month for a week amid speculation that the Warsaw Pact occupation would lead to mass cancellations among exhibitors from 34 countries. But officials in Brno insist that the event has not been affected at all by the invasion. They said a negligible number of foreign companies had withdrawn but were replaced by firms from a long waiting list A Western businessman said today: “I assume the firms which withdrew did so for purely technical reasons.

After all, business is business, politics is politics.” But the official opening of the 10-day event yesterday was marked by a silent demonstration against the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries whose troops took part in the invasion. A crowd of about 1000 at the opening ceremony applauded ]oudlx when the Brno Mayor, Mr oidrich Vaverka, introduced Government and trade representatives for Western countries, Jugoslavia and Rumania. Not a single hand moved, however, when Mr Vaverka announced the presence of the Soviet Deputy Prime Minister, Mr M. A. Lessetshko, the East German Deputy Foreign Trade Minister, Mr Horst Scholz, and the Bulgarian Foreign Trade Minister, Mr Ivan Budinov. The Soviet Union withdrew its tanks from Brno only a few days before the opening of the fair. They are now believed to be somewhere in the dense woods around the town.