The implications for Australia producers are significant because these new boys on the sales block could siphon-off much needed broadacre equipment that otherwise would have been heading our way.

Nowhere is the demand greater than in the newly-emerged coalition of the Commonwealth of Independent States where the untapped scale of their rural enterprises is quickly being realised.

This blossoming of the Russia farm equipment market was recently acknowledged by Claas executive, Cathrina Claas, when visiting Melbourne where she told of the "huge demand" within the old Soviet Union, starting in the late 1990s and accelerating rapidly since 2000.

"The numbers have increased annually by double-digit figures and they have tripled in the last three years," Ms Claas said.

"The acreages are enormous and there's been a wave of investment."

All this means that Australian farmers must address the issue of forward ordering of new equipment much more seriously than has previously been the case.

Only recently, Case IH signalled an "outstanding" 2007 trading year in Ukraine, noting that 165 of its machines had been earmarked for delivery in January of this year.

Meanwhile, Deere & Co has signed an agreement with the Russian government and local authorities to invest approximately $US80m in a central operations centre which includes a distribution, replacement parts and training facility in the Kaluga region, 38 miles southwest of Moscow.

"We believe this is one of the largest single investment projects of a non-Russian farm and forestry equipment manufacturer in Russia," Deere & Co chairman and chief executive officer, Robert lane said.

Interestingly, the action is not all internal, as evidenced by the country's biggest combine harvester manufacturer, Rostselmash, which recently took over the former high horsepower Canadian tractor maker, Buhler.

* Extract from a full report to appear in this Thursday's issues of Rural Press's weekly agricultural papers.