Russia and Ukraine are setting up a joint venture on sales and post-sales servicing of transport and passenger planes designed by Ukraine's Antonov design bureau, the head of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said on Tuesday.
"We have agreed with our [Ukrainian] partners to create a joint venture to buy materials and components, and to promote sales and post-sales servicing of the Antonov planes," Alexei Fyodorov said at a Russian-Ukrainian business forum in Kiev.
"We have made progress with one of our latest projects - development, construction and marketing of An-148 planes," Fyodorov said.
The An-148 regional passenger plane is produced at two plants in Ukraine and Russia. The UAC recently announced plans to invest 5 billion rubles ($162 mln) in the modernization of aircraft maker VASO, which produces An-148 planes in Russia.
In its basic modification, the An-148 is designed to carry 70-90 passengers up to 5,000 kilometers. It costs an estimated $20 million to produce, which is cheaper than Sukhoi's highly publicized SuperJet-100 (around $28 million).
The UAC said earlier that five An-148 passenger aircraft would be built in 2009, 18 in 2010, 36 in 2011, and that 50 planes would be made annually from 2013 onwards.
Fyodorov also said that Russia and Ukraine had plans to resume and expand production of An-124 Condor heavy-lift transport planes and saturate primarily the Russian market with An-140 short-range turboprop airliners.
The An-124 was designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in 1982, and was produced in Ukraine's Kiev and Russia's Ulyanovsk plants until 1995. Although there are no An-124s being built at present, Russia plans to manufacture a total of 20 An-124 aircraft by 2020 in accordance with the state arms procurement program.
Fyodorov also said the two countries are discussing other joint projects and might announce them soon.
"The integration of our aircraft manufacturing industries is on the agenda...we must become a unified aircraft manufacturing complex in the near future," the UAC head concluded.
KIEV, May 18 (RIA Novosti)
