MOSCOW, June 23. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian government will issue 380 billion rubles of state guarantees for defense companies in 2014, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Monday at a meeting with his deputies.
“This year, we plan to grant 96 state warrants to the sum of about 380 billion rubles,” Medvedev said.
“This is a significant sum; it will facilitate the search for funds outside the budget for more than 60 defense companies, in particular, under the contracts where the payments from the federal budget are postponed,” the prime minister stressed.
The guarantees will allow the companies to take five-year loans, he said.
Russia needs to raise state guarantees because the industry is moving towards a mass production of arms and equipment, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said. The government must ensure a 30% technical upgrade of the army by 2015 under a strategy approved earlier, he said.