According to the preliminary results of Russia's defence export efforts during the year 2004, the total scope of defence export amounted to $5.6-5.7 billion, which shows an increase by 200-300 million if compared with the year 2003.
This progress was achieved due to enlargement of the markets in North Africa and on the Arabian peninsula. It is worth while mentioning that the afore-mentioned high results were achieved despite the gradual exhaustion of the Soviet technological margin.
In general, in 2004 the structure of defence export was traditional as to its nomenclature and geography.
As in the previous years, almost half of the export consisted of supplies of aviation-related weapons and equipment. In so doing, the lion's share of this consisted in deliveries of Su-30 series aircraft.
The largest supplies in the naval armament field included the hand-over of a submarine under the contract signed in 2002, which envisaged deliveries of a total of 8 submarines to China, and supply of a new frigate to India and a hovering craft to Greece.
In 2004, four battalions of S-300PMU1 air defence systems were handed over to China.
The exported land weapons systems included 17 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles and anti-tank missile systems supplied to South Korea and a batch of 50 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles supplied to Yemen (under a contract envisaging supply of 180 BMP-2s). The same year saw completion of the contract for supply of 310 T-90S tanks to India.
China and India still remain the main buyers of Russian weapons. More or less large supplies were carried out to Greece, Vietnam, Yemen and Sudan.
90% of the Russia's defence export was carried out by the State-owned Enterprise Rosoboronexport. Apart from it, weapons were exported by the Tula Instrument Design Bureau (mostly Kornet-E anti-tank missile systems) and some other specialised enterprises.
In 2004, the Rosoboronexport signed a number of contracts for a total amount of $5.5 billion. As a result, this company's portfolio of defence-related orders amounted to $12 billion.
Sergyi Wey
12.01.2005