MOSCOW. May 20 (Interfax-AVN) - Restructuring of defense industry enterprises should be preceded by stock-taking of all enterprises, design bureaus and R&D institutes, which is needed to determine the necessity of their existence, director general of the Salyut state-owned research and production enterprise Yuri Yeliseyev said on Monday.
"Many enterprises of the defense industry only exist as legal entities, and their functions have been lost long ago," Yeliseyev told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"Restructuring of the defense industry must not turn into a goal in itself. Before making a decision on inclusion of a certain enterprise in a holding company, a stock-taking and assessment of the enterprise's potential capabilities should be made. An objective commission comprising competent specialists from, say, the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Defense Ministry and institutes researching in a corresponding sphere should be set up for that purpose," he said.
Yeliseyev said that Salyut hosted the Granit design bureau. Earlier the bureau employed over 2,000 people, but at present its personnel numbers about 200 people. Granit functions four times a week, salaries of its employees are low, there is a lack of orders, and nobody wants to deal with the entity's restructuring. "There are many enterprises like that in the defense industry," the director said.
No defense industry enterprise can survive on its own in the market economy, he stressed.
"Restructuring is necessary, but it should be natural, not through directives as it happens at the moment," Yeliseyev noted. According to him, holding companies should be set up on the basis of donor enterprises that can offer work and pay for it.
Salyut is the main producer of engines for fighters of the SU-27 Flanker family.