Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday the government was planning to adopt a new program on the modernization of the country's defense industry in the near future.

"We are actively working on a program aimed at modernizing our defense industry...We will adopt this program in the near future," Putin said.

Russia needs a strong and modernized defense industry to carry out its ambitious state rearmament program until 2020.

A comprehensive rearmament of Russia's Armed Forces is expected to begin in 2011. It will see the share of modern weaponry reach 30 percent by 2015, and total 70 percent by 2020. The government plans to allocate 20 trillion rubles ($641 billion) for this program.

In addition, Russia is the world's second largest conventional arms exporter after the United States. In 2010, Russian defense industry companies delivered about $10 billion worth of arms to foreign customers.

MOSCOW, January 31 (RIA Novosti)