MOSCOW, February 1. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the Industry and Trade Ministry’s proposal that implies that Rostec will finance the MC-21 aircraft project, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.
"Yes, I can confirm it," he said.
Earlier Kommersant business daily said with reference to sources that president had welcomed the initiative of the Minister Denis Manturov to make sure that Russia’s state-owned corporation provides funds for the project to construct a medium haul passenger plane.
The issue is about putting the company’s own funds into the capital of United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), particularly it will allocate 30 bln rubles ($534 mln) for the MC-21 project in 2018-2020, the paper wrote, adding that this will be the first step for Rostec towards taking over UAC.
The MC-21 aircraft has been developed by the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC, incorporating Irkut) on the basis of Yak-242 type by the Yakovlev Design. The MC-21 airplane has been readily embraced by the aircraft market since it meets all the requirements and can compete against similar Boeing and Airbus aircraft, outdoing them in price, fuel efficiency and passenger comfort. It will come in two configurations MC-21-200 (seating 132 to 165) and MC-21-300 (passenger capacity ranging from 163 to 211). At the moment work is proceeding only on the MC-21-300 model, which performed its maiden flight at the end of May, 2018.