The Head of Brazilian Armed Forces General Staff General Jose Carlos de Nardi announced the plans on purchasing 2 Igla man-portable air defense systems and 3 Pantsir-S1 air defense systems.
Currently the parties negotiate transaction details and implementation scheme. Preliminarily, Russia will agree to transfer the assembly licenses and Brazil will refuse bidding the tender, as Igla and Pantsir will be considered the production of Brazilian defence complex. The deal might bring Russia over $1 billion.
According to General De Nardi, Brazilian Military Forces are interested in production technologies above 2 Iglas and 3 Pantsirs purchasing. The project of bilateral agreement on equal cooperation in the sector is already elaborated. The proposal to Russian party will be considered by the President of Brazil, Dlima Rousseff. The negotiations will be held during the visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in the end of February. The transaction amount is estimated to over $1 billion.
General De Nardi was discussing the possibility of Pantsir and Igla air defense systems purchase with Valery Gerasimov, the Head of Russian General Staff, on January, 23 in Moscow. During the bilateral negotiations Brazilian party was interested in Pantsir-S1 characteristics, service conditions and maintenance expenditures. The equipment didn’t have any criticism in Russian Army. Although Rosoboronexport recommended to consider Tor-M2E missile systems, Brazilians decided to stick to Pantsir according to the Russian Armed Forces feedback. The agreement on transferring the assembly technologies is a mutually beneficial step. As soon as Brazil gets licenses for Pantsir production, the country won’t have to bid the tender on air defence systems, binding to purchasing military equipment from a foreign producer, as the systems will be considered local product. Russia in its turn will get the money without any competition. This scheme is also applicable for other types of armament. Current market situation, when tenders are fading and many are ready to cooperate only on joint production basis, boosts this kind of interaction.
According to Andrey Frolov, chief editor of the Armament Export magazine, such offset proposals help Russia to promote its production more actively on the market and Brazil to develop its defence complex.
Konstantin Makienko, Strategies and Technologies Analysis Centre expert, believes that Russia needs to cooperate with Brazil on the fighter planes, above the missile systems. That will enhance country’s promotion on the region market.
Source: Commersant
