Last year Rosoboronexport concluded procurement contracts with China at total price of $2.1 billion, which made 12% of all the company contracts, total income of the enterprise was $17.6 billion. Current order portfolio is $37.3 billion.
According to Aleksandr Fomin, general export order portfolio including the contracts of the enterprises entitled to deliver supply parts and render services was $46 billion in the end of January.
Formally China became the third largest Rosoboronexport customer after India (over $7.3 billion) and Iraq ($4.2 billion) in 2012. Although the contracts were concluded, they hadn’t come into effect yet. However , the unexpected Chinese demand quadrupling comparing to the preceding years designates considerable phenomenon especially taking into account the torrid growth of Chinese defence industry, which resulted in Russian-Chinese military cooperation ceasing in the mid 2000-s. Last year there were contracts on aviation engines and rotorcrafts delivery awarded and also several agreements on joint armament designing and producing signed.
It is known, that $1.3 billion were spent on AL-31F engines and Mi-171E helicopters, so unidentified $800 million were meant for the joint armament designing and producing. According to Rosoboronexport representatives, the contracts concern air forces weaponry supply. New contracts on 24 Su-35 fighter planes and 2 Amur submarines delivery and 2 Amur submarines construction in China might also be concluded soon. Overall contracts’ cost is estimated at approximately $3 billion.
This detects something renaissance-like in Russian-Chinese military-technical cooperation. The demand spike is less ambitious than in 1990s-2000s, but still significant within the world arms market standards.
Source: Vedomosti
