In August Russia and Nigeria signed a large contract for delivery of helicopters, ITAR-TASS reports with reference to the head of Rostec State Corporation’s delegation at ADEX-2014, Sergey Goreslavsky.
"In August a contract for delivery of a large batch of helicopters to Nigeria was signed. This refers to significant number of Mi-171Sh and a few Mi-35M helicopters", - Goreslavsky said.
He added that Mi-171Sh and other versions of Mi-17 helicopter are in demand in Africa. "Mozambique is interested in these vehicles and we are going to promote the helicopters at the exhibition held in Republic of South Africa", - he added.
According to Goreslavsky, new sanctions imposed by EU on Friday will have little impact on Russia’s export deliveries of weapons and military equipment.
"Taking into account tasks set in terms of phasing out imports, we believe that the new sanctions imposed by EU will have little impact on our export deliveries", - he said.
It was reported earlier that EU expanded sanctions against certain sectors of Russian economy. In particular, the sanctions ban lending to five Russian state banks, three defense and three oil companies for a period longer than 30 days. For the first time United Aircraft Corporation, Uralagonzavod and Oboronprom Corporation (part of Rostec Corporation) made the sanctions list. The head of Rostec Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, was also included in the list.
On August 12th CEO of Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaykin, said that the company signed a number of large contracts for delivery of weapons and military equipment to Middle East and North Africa. In particular, Bahrain will take delivery of Kornet-EM anti-tank weapon system; Namibia – small arms, Kornet-E systems, ammunition and trainers.
Isaykin also noted that since 2013 Rosoboronexport signed contracts with the countries of Central and South Africa worth about $1,7 billion and the company’s backlog in the region keeps increasing.
"So far countries located to the south of Sahara are accounted for about 2% share in our exports. However, the number of orders is increasing and this is a long-term trend", - he said. "Over the last few years a basis for cooperation with Nigeria, Cameroon, Mozambique, Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea was created. In future Russia may also deliver weapons and military equipment to Botswana, Niger, Kenya, Rwanda, Djibouti and Ethiopia", - Isaykin noted.
According to him, negotiations on military-technical cooperation with other regions are in progress; even USSR did not cooperate with some of them. "Among them are Saudi Arabia and Qatar (Middle East), Brunei (Asia-Pacific Region), Chile and Bolivia (Latin America). And these are not all of them", - Isaykin added.
