MOSCOW, April 3 (AVN) - Director General of the Rosoboronexport state owned arms trading company Andrei Belyaninov and Director General of the Sukhoi aircraft corporation signed a general agreement on Tuesday concerning co-operation in promoting SU aircraft on the global market.
The agreement deals with interaction between Rosoboronexport and Sukhoi, as well as the main directions and forms of their mutually profitable co-operation. Its implementation will pave the way for more efficient formation of the pricing policy, granting services in the sphere of after-sale aircraft attendance, evading unnecessary competition on the domestic market, realising programmes of export aircraft variant development and boosting export of SU planes.
Also on Tuesday, the two officials signed a Rosoboronexport-Sukhoi long-term co-operation programme.
Belyaninov and Pogosyan told the Military News Agency that the programme comprises three sections. The first provides for implementing the already signed contracts, including on licensed production SU family aircraft in India and China and sales of those planes to other countries.
The second section deals with promising programmes that the two officials declined to comment on saying they constituted trade secret. The third section provides for marketing research. "SU fighters have a great weight in the world and our task is to make its even greater. This is the primary aim of the co-operation programme," Belyaninov said.
"If we want the Russian aviation to hold advanced positions on the global market, we must work on development of new combat aircraft, including those of the fifth generation," Belyaninov went on. According to him, the fifth generation fighter development programme is estimated at several billions of dollars.
Pogosyan said the agreement did not provide for financing of the programme, but it was aimed at the future, and a part of profits from implementation of the contracts would be spent on development of new aircraft.
The Rosoboronexport-Sukhoi interaction will go beyond finding single contracts towards establishing long-term co-operation, the officials stressed.
According to data obtained by the Agency, Rosoboronexport has signed similar agreements with administrations of Nizhny Novgorod and Tula. Agreements with the administrations of Yaroslavl and other Russian regions are being elaborated.