AST Research Takes Trip to Brazil: AST...

AST Research Takes Trip to Brazil: AST Research Inc., making a push to sell its personal computers in South America, this week joined a cadre of international high-tech companies in Brazil for the region’s largest computer trade show.

The Irvine computer maker is displaying its products through Intercorp do Brazil, that country’s fourth-largest software reseller, during the five-day Comdex/Sucesu-SP ’92 trade show, which ends Friday. Only two other Orange County companies, organizers said, have booths in the show. They are Seal Beach aerospace giant Rockwell International Corp. and Irvine computer components maker Western Digital Corp.

Brazil’s $7.2-billion computer market is the world’s sixth largest, but the nation is considered as one whose businesses remain vastly “under-computerized.” More important, Brazil recently signed a free-trade agreement with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to form the region’s first common market--called Mercosur--by 1995. This pact would significantly reduce import tariffs on goods and services exchanged between member states, which have a combined population of nearly 200 million and a collective gross domestic product of $390 billion.

AST officials said the company has distributors and dealers in South America and has no immediate plans to open a subsidiary or sales office in the region.