MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/. Russia plans to begin abolishing preferences to foreign aircraft manufacturers from 2019 to regain control over the domestic civil aircraft market, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Sunday.
"Today, we produce 30 planes a year, which is by 25 less than Airbus or Boeing but by 2025 we plan to manufacture already 110 planes a year," he said in an interview with the Sunday evening news roundup on the Rossiya-1 television channel. "As production of domestic aircraft increases, we will abolish privileges foreign aircraft-makers are enjoying, say, from 2019."
According to official statistics cited by Rogpzin, Russia strongly depends on foreign aircraft manufacturers. Thus, in his words, it has bought foreign-made 367 planes since 2013. Apart from that, he noted that big funds are spent to lease foreign planes. "Being dependent on foreign aircraft makers, we spend and pay abroad some 470 billion rubles (7.83 billion U.S. dollars) a year. It is an insult to the nation, an insult to the aviation power and we could not stand such state of things any longer," he said, adding that it was the reason to encourage the development and production of new Russian aircraft, including the MC-21 and Sukhoi Superject 100 planes.
The deputy prime minister said that a plan of replacing all foreign aircraft by Russian-made analogues has already been drafted and submitted to President Vladimir Putin. "We will regain this market. If we did it in the defense sector, we can do it in the civil sector as well," he stressed.