Moscow aircraft plant reports orders worth 140m dollars

MOSCOW, April 15, 2004 (Interfax) — The Moscow-based Chernyshev machine-building enterprise has built up a stock of orders totalling 140m dollars, the enterprise’s director general Aleksandr Novikov said on Thursday.

“The stock of orders for this year has been formed. The value of signed agreements totals about 140m dollars,” Novikov told Interfax-Military News Agency.

The enterprise is planning to bring the output up to 300m dollars in the next 1.5 years, he said.

“The Chernyshev enterprise’s output grew 8 per cent in 2003 as compared to the previous year,” Novikov noted.

He said that the output growth in 2002 amounted to about 35 per cent thanks to receiving orders for RD-33 engines for MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters that Russia was exporting to Eritrea, Sudan, Yemen and other countries.

The enterprise employs 6,700 people. An average monthly salary amounts to nearly R10,000 (349.3 dollars).

The Chernyshev enterprise is Russia’s only aircraft engine-builder which manufactures engines for MiG-29 fighters of all modifications. Russia has produced up to 1,600 MiG-29 planes and at least 3,500 engines for them.