March 2005
PCM Industry in Eastern European Countries
When I was asked by the PCMI to give a survey
at their Fall 2004 meeting oftoday’s PCM
industry in the Eastern Eumpean countries,
including Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine, I was
afraid there would not be much to say. WelL..
Some of you still remember that I used to travel a
lot from 1960 to 1990. That means for 31 years,
I travelled in the so-called Eastern Block
countries to consult customers and to sell wet
processing equipment on behalf of Chemcut and
CRH electronics. For both companies, these
markets were very important, above all those in
the USSR, the GDR and Bulgaria, but also those
in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary. Often
the monthly turnover with these countries
accounted for halfofthe business of Chemcut
GmbH as well as, later, for CRH electronics.
I’ll mention just one statistic: During my 23
years with Chemcut GmbH, we sold almost 1500
wet processing systems to the USSR, but all of
them for PCB production, none for PCM.
Gunter Decker, KIV PCB ProfiChem GmbH, Solingen, Germany
