BERLIN, May 16 (RIA Novosti) - Sukhoi will sign Wednesday contracts with German companies Brotje and Fooke on supplies of high-tech equipment to assemble new aircraft under the Russian Regional Jet project, the aircraft-maker said Tuesday.
"We will sign contracts tomorrow with Germany's two leading producers of assembly machines," Sukhoi head Mikhail Pogosyan said Tuesday at the ILA-2006 international air show in Berlin. "We will buy high technology equipment ... to assemble planes of the highest international class."
The RRJ project is a family of medium-range passenger aircraft developed by the Sukhoi aircraft holding in cooperation with major American and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace, and Honeywell.
Although Sukhoi is probably better known in the West for its military aircraft, it hopes the RRJ will become the first Russian-made civilian plane to be successfully exported.
Sukhoi has signed a number of contracts for RRJ supplies, worth more than $1 billion. In December 2005, national carrier Aeroflot and Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, a subsidiary of the Sukhoi holding, signed an $820-million deal for 30 RRJ planes.
The deal should be approved by Aeroflot shareholders at an extraordinary meeting May 16.
