MOSCOW. April 24 (Interfax-AVN) - Depersonalization of arms exports revenues and their unequal distribution between plants do not meet the interests of defense industry development, said the Audit Chamber inspection team that examined military-technical cooperation in Russia.
"The inspectors think that depersonalization of revenues from military-technical cooperation, which the budget gains in the form of taxes, does not meet the interests of defense industry development and the creation of modern arms. Moreover, export revenues are unequally distributed between defense plants," a source in the Audit Chamber told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
There are over 1,600 defense industry enterprises in Russia, but 10 to 20 of them account for a fair share in the arms exports volume and earn most of the revenues. About 100 enterprises act as head executors, and 800 to 1,000 as co-executors.
Deductions from profits on intellectual property to the federal budget were enacted for the first time in 2000, the source said. However, the budget has gained only RUB20.8m (USD668,790) instead of the over RUB9bn (USD289.38m) planned, which is about 0.2% of the budget target. In 2001, at least RUB4bn (USD128.6m), or 3.5% of the value of contracts, was supposed to be channeled to the federal budget, but real revenues amounted to only RUB209m (USD6.72m), or about 5% of the planned volume.
The Audit Chamber revealed that exporters had transferred from 1-4% of their net profits to the budget instead of the planned 10-50%. In particular, the Rosoboronexport state-owned arms trader only transferred to the federal budget RUB50m (USD1.61m) out of profits that remained after paying taxes and other obligatory payments in 2001, which amounted to only about 4% of the company's net profits. The Admiralteiskiye Verfi shipyard had not deducted anything from its revenues at all by the moment of the inspection. The Uralvagonzavod tank producer obtained net profits totaling RUB320m (USD10.29m) in 2000, transferred nothing to the federal budget, and only transferred 2% of its net profits amounting to RUB862.8m (USD27.74m) in 2001.
"The Audit Chamber considers these facts to be a lack of balance of interests of the state and participants in military- technical cooperation," the source said.