Verity sees new market in Soviet Union

Commerce Secretary C. William Verity Jr. said yesterday the Soviet Union was a potentially large new market for United States goods but cautioned that expanded trade was not going to come quickly. Mr. Verity also said he planned to meet with Soviet businessmen and perhaps Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Verity said at a news conference that he and a number of US businessmen would be meeting with a top Soviet trade official, Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Kamentsev, following the Gorbachev-Reagan meetings. Mr. Kamentsev was named earlier this year to coordinate economic and foreign trade relations under the new Soviet policy of economic decentralization.

Verity said he did not know if Gorbachev would attend the meeting to outline the new Soviet policies, but US businessmen said they thought he would be present.

Other Soviet trade officials told US businessmen at a meeting Wednesday that their country was ready for an increase in trade with the US.