Aviaexport in $170m deal with India

Published: 6/2/2000

Aerospace export agency Aviaexport has sold 40 Mi-17-1V to India in a contract reported to be worth $170m. The aircraft, which will be built by Kazan Helicopters, are the export version of the Mi-8MTV-2 and will be equipped to carry machine guns and unguided rockets by the armament and spares export agency Promexport. The new helicopters will join a large fleet of Mi-17/Mi-8s operated by the Indian Air Force, reported to be 180 aircraft. According to Kazan, the helicopter has proved its reliability at high altitudes during the recent conflict with Pakistan in Kashmir operating on both sides of the conflict, as Pakistan also operates the helicopter as an unarmed version Involving Promexport in the sale of an armed helicopter is a new departure for the Kazan plant, which normally would have dealt through arms export agency Rosvooruzhenie, whose local representative, Mikhael Tikhonov is a former manager at Kazan. While not reading to much into this particular development, it appears to add weight to the expectation among some commentators that the recent merger of Promexport with Russian Technologies (Rossiiskiye Tekhnologii) is a precursor to a merger of the various export agencies, with Putin ally and General Director of Promexport, Sergey Chemezov, as the GD of the new combined agency. Chemezov an active proponent of such a merger according to reports, worked with Putin during the 1980s in Germany and was formerly Head of the President's Administration before taking over at Promexport. The greater control and consolidation of the agencies is seen by some as resolving two problems. The first, the harnessing of Rosvooruzhenie's strong hard currency revenues from defence exports, currently reported to lie within the orbit of the shadowy 'Kremlin family' with the replacement of the previous General Director former Colonel General Gregory Rapota by Yeltsin-connected Alexei Ogarevto in August of 1999 despite Rapota's strong performance in the job, appears to support this view. Secondly and probably more importantly, is the streamlining of the various agencies that have grown up over the last ten years in a ramshackle state structure responding to the inability of individual factories to develop their commercial capability after the abolition of the agencies in the early nineties. The lack of clearly defined boundaries and coordination between the various bodies has resulted in some notable disagreements; the most recent being the conflict between Kazan and Ulan Ude over helicopter contracts in Malaysia.

Article ID: 1834