MOSCOW: Russia’s military hardware exports yielded about $15 billion for the state coffers in 2016, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday. The Russian premier cited these data at an enlarged session of the United Russia faction in the national parliament. “The state defense order has been actually 99% fulfilled and this has never happened before,” Medvedev told members of the ruling United Russia party, which he heads. “The export deliveries of military hardware as part of military and technical cooperation have brought about $15 billion, which allows us to keep our positions on the world armaments market,” the premier said.
Russia is placed 2nd on this market after the United States, Medvedev said. “It is important for us to retain this market,” the premier said. According to the premier, Russian defense enterprises have increased production by more than 10% Last year, Russia’s aircraft-making industry increased military production by almost 3.5% while its civilian output grew by about 20%,” the premier said. “Russia is developing principally new models of aircraft, such as the MC-21, which will fly using the promising PD-14 engine. Quite recently, the plane was rolled out in Irkutsk,” Medvedev said, expressing the hope that the project would develop according to plan. Domestic ship-building has also demonstrated fairly good results, the premier said. “Defense output in this sphere grew by more than 2% while the civilian segment of ship-building increased by 11%,” Medvedev said.
