GREAT BUSINESS OF CONDOMS OR GREAT SECURITY (ABSTRACT)

MARI TSIKLAURI

In the middle of the 19th century there were unsuitable means of “protection from undesirable love effects’. At that time, condom was made of the skin of animal genitals while in the 17th century people used cloth sodden in anti-septic floral solution.

After the “sexual revolution” condom has turned into the symbol of human victory over the biological essence. It has been widely produced after the American Charles Gudir has invented the technology of rubber vulcanization though this production has improved only after the use of latex. Sales turnover of condom reaches 2 billion dollars. This can be explained by the fear of most people to get infected with AIDS: but for this dangerous disease many companies would be compelled to change profile.
It is noteworthy that production of condom was in the second place in the former Soviet Union after gasmask. Usual rubber was used for the production of condom in than period. Factories started to produce condom from latex only in the 80-s. Approximately 200 million condoms were produced in the country up to 90s of the past century. This quantity was enough and it cost 4 kopecks. According to the present data, about 480 million condoms were exported to Russia from foreign countries in 2002. Yet, one third of this quantity was meant for re-export to CIS countries (Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldova and Georgia). The volume of condom market in Russia makes up approximately 50 million dollars increasing annually by 10%.
As for Georgia, condom business faces the same problems here as any other one. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, condoms were mainly imported to Georgia illegally. Presently, there are firms that work legally though the gigantic scales of smuggling, certainly, stand in the way of legal business. 25% VAT on this production impedes the development of the business due to the low purchasing ability of population. Despite this, people in Georgia are well aware of the danger of AID and other diseases. Thus, people buy condoms here, mostly, smuggled ones as they can not afford to buy expensive ones. Thus, people’s health is always victimized to price and quality. It became difficult to clear out the correlation between legal and contraband condoms as well as the quantity of imported and sold condoms per year.
As some say, there is a direct relation in the condom market ? the better the country lives, the more condoms it has. If we take this view in consideration, Russia lives twice as better than in previous years while we, Georgians, will see that the life has changed only after we start to calculate the number of sold condoms.