Russian aircraft manufacturing companies are capable of penetrating global markets despite tough competition, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
"We are certain that the Russian aircraft industry could find its own niche on the global market and we lay serious hopes on that," Putin said at the international forum Engineering Technologies-2010.
Putin said Russia was well aware of strong competition on aircraft markets but had several projects that could become a success globally, including the An-124 Condor heavy-lift transport plane and the Superjet 100 medium-haul passenger plane.
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 and Ukraine have reportedly agreed to resume production in the future.
The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-haul passenger aircraft developed by Sukhoi in cooperation with U.S. and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace and Honeywell.
The certification procedures have delayed the delivery of the first aircraft to Armenia's national airline Armavia and Russia's flagship air carrier Aeroflot, which was due to begin in December 2009.
Putin confirmed on Wednesday that the Superjet 100 and its engine had almost completed the certification process and the first deliveries of the plane would start by the end of 2010.
Sukhoi, part of Russia's United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), plans to manufacture at least 700 Superjet 100s, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China. It is not clear where the remaining 23% would be sold or redistributed.
Currently, the company has at least 122 firm orders for Superjet 100 airliners.
ZHUKOVSKY, June 30 (RIA Novosti)
