MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. The world market of military products will get back to the growth rates that were observed before the novel coronavirus pandemic no earlier than 2023, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told the government-published daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta in an interview.
"The novel coronavirus pandemic has greatly harmed the world economy. According to experts’ estimates, the world GDP may go down by 4%-5% in 2020-2021 in contrast to 2019. Regrettably, Russia’s main partners in the field of military-technical cooperation, such as Algeria, Egypt, India, China and others, are among the hardest-hit," Fomin said.
He stressed that the decline in world economic growth rates had caused world military spending and arms purchases to shrink.
"It is expected that over two years to come world military spending will fall by 8% and the world export of military products, by 4%. Experts predict that the world market of weapons may be expected to get back to pre-crisis growth rates no earlier than 2023," he remarked.
Fomin added that the dates of delivering products to some customers had been reconsidered.
"One of the reasons for this is it was impossible to host foreign specialists for conducting pre-delivery inspections in Russia or to delegate Russian representatives for handover procedures and the servicing of products in the clients’ territories," he added.