ASTANA, May 23. /ITAR-TASS/. A Russian-Kazakh joint venture established to modernize Soviet-era T-72 tanks and create other armored vehicles on their basis will start work in the next two months, Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service Deputy Director Konstantin Biryulin said on Friday.

“The production of BMPT-2 tank support combat vehicles is one of the enterprise’s areas of work. In general, it will deal with modernization of the entire fleet of Kazakhstan’s T-72 tanks,” Biryulin said at the Kadex-2014 international armaments exhibition in the Kazakh capital of Astana.

The joint venture will also engage in converting T-72 tanks decommissioned by Kazakhstan into armored repair and evacuation vehicles, obstacle-removing vehicles and other armored machines, he said.

“The enterprise was intended to start work back last year but the launch schedule has been shifted due to delays in formalization issues. In actual fact, it has already been registered and will start work no later than in two months,” he said.

An agreement on a parity joint venture between Russia’s Uralvagonzavod and Kazakhstan Engineering was signed in September last year at the Russia Arms Expo armaments exhibition in Nizhny Tagil.