Word: skoda
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...Czech town of Mlada Boleslav last week came a set of production statistics meant to impress the West as well as local consumers. Daily output of autos from the town's Skoda plant had reached 340; by the end of this year it would rise to 400, for a total 1967 total of over 100,000 cars...
...figures are minuscule by the standards of such Western giants as General Motors, Ford, or even Volkswagen. But in Skoda's case, they are significant not only to Czechoslovakia but to all of Communist Eastern Europe. If nothing else, Skoda's snappy, rugged little family compact, the 1000 MB, proves that Communism can at least try to compete in highly competitive western auto markets. Where such products as Russia's Zil and East Germany's Trabant have failed to make even the smallest dent in the Western market, Skoda's 1000 MB has become increasingly...
...unmarketed in North America, the 1000 MB sells at hard-currency prices ranging from $1,195 in West Germany to $1,350 in Austria and about $1,500 in England (purchase taxes account for the cost differential). It is easier for a foreigner to buy a Skoda than for a Czech, since the government places a high priority on exports. The list price for a 1000 MB in Czechoslovakia is 45,600 crowns, or $3,040, and the waiting period is more than three years. Even so, some 160,000 Czechs have already put down deposits averaging $1,300 each...
Bulgarian Premier Todor Zhivkov came, together with Soviet Deputy For eign Trade Minister Boris A. Borisov and Polish Government Observer Eugeniusz Zadrzynski. Technicians from science academies, state banks, government offices and such industries as Skoda, Bata Shoe and East Germany's Carl Zeiss optical works not only probed and photographed the equipment but brought along actual problems for the computers to solve...
Tourists rarely see either the intellectual ferment or the burgeoning industry of the East-the steam-wreathed polyethylene plant at Rumanian Ploesti; the scorching debate over Camus at Budapest's Hungaria Restaurant; the clanking Skoda automobile factory outside Prague; the student jazz joint in Warsaw where frugging and free verse give the lie to socialist realism. This is also the domain of the Western businessman, of the 500 Western firms which are engaged in cooperative ventures worth $800 million in Eastern Europe, and which will do many times that amount of business in the years ahead...