Brazil is acquiring Russian Pantsir-S1 (Shield S1) and Igla (“Needle”) missile systems, and the two nations are in talks about setting up a joint venture to manufacture helicopters. Russia is about to launch similar joint projects with Argentina and Peru. Head of the Russian Technology Corporation’s International Economic Cooperation Department Sergey Goreslavsky has told GAZETA.ru about a possible BRICS technology alliance and Russian Technology’s Latin American plans.
Latin American nations currently operate approximately 500 Soviet- and Russian-made helicopters. Peru has been the largest importer so far: the military and law enforcers of that nation alone operate about 100 of these rotary-wing aircraft. Russian fixed-wing military aircraft have been shipped to Venezuela and Cuba as well as Peru. In the automotive sector, AvtoVAZ delivered more than 250,000 passenger cars to Latin America between 1986 and 1994. The following years saw a decline in car exports to these markets for a range of social, economic, and political reasons; however, AvtoVAZ has returned to the region’s markets since, and is now expanding its market share there.
On the whole, Russian machinery and equipment enjoys healthy demand in Latin America. Regional market growth encourage Russian Technology to pursue this market further. Russian Technology has seven offices in Latin America: one each in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru. We are an active participant in military, civilian, and dual-purpose equipment trade shows across Latin American: FIDAE (held in Santiago, Chile), LAAD (Rio-de-Janeiro, Brazil) and SITDEF (Lima, Peru).
We have built extensive military and technological cooperation with Venezuela since 2005, when we started practically from scratch. We have shipped more than 50 helicopters of different models there, including Mille Mi-17B-5, Mi-35M and Mi-26T, and more than twenty Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighter jets. Venezuela became the first country other than Russia to buy the modern Russian Mille Mi-35M transport and combat helicopter.
We have signed a deal with Brazil to ship twelve Mi-35M helicopters there. Russia and Brazil are actively expanding bilateral military and technological cooperation. An agreement was signed last December to ship to Brazil seven top-of-the-line medium multi-role Kamov Ka-62 helicopters by 2015, with an option for another seven; these helicopters rely on state-of-the-art technologies and materials. The Brazilian contract is going to be Ka-62’s international debut.
Additionally, we have started working together with Odebrecht Defensa e Technologia, one of Brazil’s largest defense industrial groups, on a possible project to build a Mille helicopter assembly plant in Brazil. Russian Helicopters is actively pursuing new markets and cooperation opportunities worldwide, and its best-case scenario plans envisage building assembly plants in Latin America for both its major helicopter brands – Mille and Kamov.
Another substantial ongoing project in Brazil centers on the country’s cooperation with VSMPO-Avisma, a major Russian titanium producer, which is the sole supplier of titanium and titanium products for Embraer, the major Brazilian aviation company.
However, our focus reaches beyond isolated projects and single-product contracts, into creating a technological alliance relying on two-way exchange of technologies and setting up assembly lines in Brazil. The proposed technological partnership also reaches beyond bilateral cooperation with Brazil and potentially involves all BRICS countries. We are getting close to proposing projects that could become multilateral, possibly as early as at the upcoming South African BRICS Summit.
Source: Gazeta.RU
