VORONEZH/MOSCOW. Jan 23 (Interfax-AVN) - Contrary to media reports, the Voronezh Mechanical Plant (VMZ) has not suspended production of rocket engines and continues working in the regular mode, VMZ Financial Director Alexander Knyazev said on Thursday.
"The plant is not closed, it is working, nobody has suspended engine production. However the funding has always been scarce. This is not today's problem. We have been facing it for nearly a decade. But nobody is going to close down the plant," Knyazev told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The plant has been mounting output in the past few years, he said. "Plans for 2003 exceed last year's figures as well. The problem is the funding," he noted.
Knyazev said the Khrunichev space center, Energia space corporation and TsSKB-Progress space rocket center were the plant's main customers. Its engines are powering Proton and Progress rockets.
"The Voronezh Mechanical Plant will never be idling. It is among the leading producers of space assets," press secretary of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency's director general Sergei Gorbunov told Interfax-AVN.
He said media reports on the situation at the plant were utterly incompetent and declined to comment on data on the plant's performances cited by the media.
"We have got tired of these media fabrications. The plant continues working. Its engines are needed for the Khrunichev Space Center, Energia Corporation and the Samara enterprise," Gorbunov said.
Though the plant's funding is scarce, suspension of production is out of the question, because its products are in demand.
Some media outlets earlier reported that the Voronezh Mechanical Plant suspended operation due to lack of state orders for the Proton and Soyuz rockets, and that more than 3,000 workers of the plant were left without work.