MOSCOW. Feb 18 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian arms exports reached the record volume amounting to USD4.8bn last year, Alexander Denisov, first deputy chairman of the Russian committee for military-technical cooperation with foreign nations, said on Tuesday.
Russia's profits from arms exports exceeded target figures and reached USD4.5bn in 2002, Denisov told Interfax-Military News Agency.
These are preliminary results of the year, they have not been approved by President Vladimir Putin, he said. But it is already clear that last year's target profits of USD4.3bn have been exceeded.
Denisov did not name the countries that procured weapons from Russia and the range of these weapons, saying the data is confidential. At the same time, he praised the work of the Rosoboronexport state-owned arms trader and other arms exporters, including the MIG aircraft corporation and Tula-based Machine- Building Design Bureau. These two enterprises exported products worth a total of about USD800m last year.
The committee for military-technical cooperation with foreign nations expects Rosoboronexport's share in the total volume of arms exports to decline gradually. It predicts that other authorized arms exporters will expand their operation on foreign markets.
"Such tendency does exist. In the past two years, we have registered a slight increase in the share of other participants in military-technical cooperation," Denisov said.
"Rosoboronexport, among other entities, profits from it. Competition makes one act more quickly and respond better to the customers' requests," he noted.
According to Denisov, this year's goal is to retain the current volume of arms exports and enhance it, if it is possible.