Environmental Issues in Asia Create Market : Trade: Federal administrator tells O.C. business leaders that there are many opportunities for manufacturers of products that meet new regulations.

A growing awareness in Asia of environmental issues might open opportunities for Orange County businesses, a government official said this week.

Henrietta Holsman Fore, assistant administrator of the Asia bureau for the U.S. Agency for International Development, spoke with minority business leaders and UC Irvine staff about the booming market in Asia for products to meet new environmental regulations there.

She said Southern California is especially rich in energy-efficient and environmentally correct companies because the area has had such onerous air-pollution problems.

Asian countries such as Singapore and Vietnam are just beginning the battle against such problems as deforestation, polluted rivers and smoggy skies, she said.

An organizer of the meeting, Maria-Dubravka Pineda, said the purpose was to help small and minority-owned businesses in Orange County--which do not have the resources large firms do--explore the opportunities in Asia.

The worldwide market for environmental products, such as water filters and catalytic converters for cars, and products to stretch energy sources is $200 billion annually, Fore estimated. It is expected to grow to $300 billion by the year 2000.

The services associated with those sales--financing, market research, computer systems analysis--provide opportunities for companies here as well.

Orange County was the third stop on Fore’s tour of California. Because people of Asian descent, Fore said, make up a significant portion of the county’s population--about 10%--she is hopeful that her agency’s new program will spark interest here. People who moved here from countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia still have “a special interest, an emotional tie” to Asia, she said.

Called the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership, the program involves Fore’s agency and 25 other federal bureaus. It is intended to be a model to lead United States companies to do business in the rest of the world.

The point, Fore said, is to make overseas investment simpler. An example: A single form can be used to apply for government financing for any of several projects.

Meeting organizer Pineda said her company, International Marketing Media in Newport Beach, has won a contract to do market research in Taiwan for a financial services firm.

Lori Munoz-Reiland, director of business and management and executive education for UC Irvine’s extension school, said her staff was particularly interested in a portion of Fore’s program that would promote executive exchanges. It would provide fellowships to allow U.S. and Asian corporate leaders to visit and study each other’s businesses.

Fernando Niebla, chairman and chief executive of Infotech Development Inc. in Santa Ana, said he is beginning to do business in other countries, such as Mexico. He said the one-stop financing program may interest him in Asian investment as well.

“I got a better idea of what kind of support we can expect from U.S. agencies,” he said.

One aspect of the Environmental Partnership is introducing U.S. technology, such as computers, into other countries.

Fore’s agency formerly ran government-to-government programs, she said, but its emphasis is now on corporate matchmaking.

“The governments are fading away,” Fore said. “The future is in economic partnerships.”