O.C. Trade Group Plans World Missions

After a failed attempt to send its first trade mission to Eastern Europe last year, the World Trade Center Assn. of Orange County is trying again.

The group, the county’s largest nonprofit organization devoted to international trade, said Friday that it is planning two 12-day trade missions: one to Russia later this year and one to the Baltic states in the spring of 1993.

The tours, limited to 12 participants each, are a joint effort of the trade group and Cultural Access Network Inc., a Laguna Beach information service that provides U.S. companies with data on emerging private enterprises in the former Soviet Union, said Kathy Jones, marketing director of the Irvine association.

“Local companies will have the chance to establish a presence and develop business relations with a host of entrepreneurs in those countries,” she said. “These would allow the participants to conduct business successfully in Russia or the countries they visit in Eastern Europe.”

The first tour, which is to leave Nov. 9, will visit Moscow and St. Petersburg, where participants will meet Russian business people and discuss possible ventures.

The second, to begin March 8, will take a separate group of business executives to the three newly independent Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In both instances, the cost will be $3,495, which covers round-trip air fare from New York, all local transportation and accommodations in overseas countries, most meals, and visits to museums and performances.