ON MILITARY AND TECHNICAL COOPERATION WITH FOREIGN STATES
Sergei Ivanov: I can give you the final results concerning the volume of our military and technical cooperation in 2005. The figures represent yet another record. The results can be summed up as six billion dollars in 2005 – since we are referring to exports, we calculate this number in dollars.
Vladimir Putin: In 2004 it amounted to five and a half billion dollars.
Sergei Ivanov: It is another record year. This reflects the fact that the system of military and technical cooperation that was introduced in 2000 is effective. Our results are increasing every year. And last year the volume of military and technical cooperation increased not only with respect to Rosoboronexport. Undoubtedly, Rosoboronexport is the leading company. But now the extent to which other companies participate in military and technical cooperation has also increased. Companies such as the Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG and Salut, a production and research company. These companies already have a fifteen percent share, whereas last year their share was only ten percent. In other words, Rosoboronexport is losing its monopoly. And what is especially pleasant is that deliveries of spare parts have increased. We need a number of decisions and measures so that spare parts are categorized separately in the simplified scheme. In the last three years the volume of spare parts deliveries has increased threefold.
Vladimir Putin: It is necessary to speed up the implementation of these decisions.
Sergei Ivanov: We also have a wider range of commissions in our portfolio. Because of the fact that in the last days of December 2005 we signed a number of contracts, today the common portfolio amounts to 22 billion dollars. In other words, within the next few years our industry will receive important numbers of orders.
In addition, the geographic range of our exports has expanded. Today we are involved in military and technical cooperation with 82 states. I consider it very important that our state defence commissions and purchases of weapons, especially for our armed forces, should grow. There has been a certain increase in this area and I already mentioned this today: weapons exports amount to six billion dollars and state defence commissions to nine billion, and this is only for the Ministry of Defence.
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ON THE GLOBAL NAVIGATION SATELLITE SYSTEM (GLONASS)
Vladimir Putin: Sergei Borisovich, as Vice Premier you are now in a position to look over the situation in related industries and in technologies that we refer to as dual-use. What is happening now in our space sector and what prospects are there for accelerating the GLONASS programme?
Sergei Ivanov: According to the federal target programme GLONASS, we put three new spacecraft, with seven-year-serviceable period, into orbit in December 2005 and in a month they will be already functioning. We are proposing a number of measures so that the system starts working on a nation-wide scale at the end of 2007, and by this I mean already functioning at full capacity and using all the reception equipment on the ground. And we plan to make this system global in 2009 and not in 2012 as was originally planned.
Together with the head of Roskosmos, Anatoliey Nikolaevich Perminov, we have had many working meetings with the participation of the Ministry of Defence, Rosprom, Rosgidrografiya, Roskarotgrafiya and Geodesics since the ground equipment is also implicated in all this. We are absolutely convinced that accelerating this programme is theoretically possible. It is possible to do this without huge additional spendings. In 2006 it is necessary to allocate just one and half billion so that we can keep to the prospective schedule.
Vladimir Putin: One and a half billion?
Sergei Ivanov: Yes, one and a half billion in 2006. In 2007 and 2008 additional resources will also be required but all of this will allow us to launch the system by the end of 2007 and to put it in the market.
You were absolutely correct when you said that the basic economic effect from implementing this programme is not in military but rather in the civil sphere, even though of course there is a certain qualitative gain for the military.
Ground equipment that depends on where it will be employed has been developed. Ships, airplanes and helicopters as well as means of transport — trains, private cars, and moreover, normal light vehicles.
Vladimir Putin: For transporting cargo?
Sergei Ivanov: Transporting cargo too, and it is possible if interested persons appear on the market, that we can even provide reception equipment for people or domestic animals.
Vladimir Putin: Wherever the navigation system takes root this is what exactly is being used. Including in animal breeding, strangely enough. I have not even mentioned the system to protect biological resources.
Sergei Ivanov: We have already prepared the schedules and the accounting.
Vladimir Putin: We must finish it with the Government.