Tầu chở máy bay của Ấn Độ- Gorshkov

Tầu chở máy bay của Ấn Độ- Gorshkov

21 january 2004
$1.5Bln Gorshkov Contract Is Sealed

The Moscow Times



As defense officials toasted the $1.5 billion deal *****pply the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to India, analysts speculated whether domestic firms can deliver on time, and how Moscow will hold on to its position as New Delhi''s leading arms supplier.



Wrapping up nearly a decade of laborious negotiations, Russia and India signed a package of contracts Tuesday, obligating Moscow to upgrade and deliver the carrier by 2008. The 20-year-old Gorshkov will be given to India for free. But its retrofit will cost about $650 million, while its fitting with 16 MiG-29 and eight Ka-27 and Ka-31 naval helicopters will come at a price of an extra $730 million, according to media reports. A source in the aviation industry said that an option of 30 ad***ional MiG-29s has been discussed.



Overall, the eventual sum of contracts could come up to $3 billion, said Konstantin Makienko, deputy head of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. "This is a success not only for Russia but also for India. It joins the United States and France in an elite club of carrier owners, which is even tighter than that of the nuclear powers."



India''s only carrier at present, the INS Viraat, was built for defense and has a limited range. Now the Gorshkov will give the Indian navy the capacity to put a carrier task force within range of China.



With the deal finally complete, Russian manufacturers will have to make a concerted effort to meet the deadline, Makienko said. "It will be a serious challenge, but they simply have to do it now."



An official at the Severodvinsk machine-building enterprise, or Sevmash, where the Gorshkov has been idle since 1997, said the deal would be a boost for the company. Currently the company''s 23,000 employees survive on an average salary of a little more than $100 per month making an oil platform for state oil company Rosneft and constructing four nuclear submarines for the navy. "In Soviet times, we had 40,000 staff and made five ships per year. Now we make one in a decade," the company official said. He insisted, however, that Sevmash has all the skilled labor it needs to carry out the retrofit of Gorshkov and is unlikely to invite outside specialists.



Makienko said the greater challenge is for Russian Aircraft Building Corp. MiG. "In the last few years MiG has subsisted on platforms it inherited from the Soviet Union," he said. "Now it will have to make aircraft from scratch, as well as finish up research and development on the jet."



After supplying a batch of MiG-29s to Malaysia in 1995, the company''s finances dried up until new chief Nikolai Nikitin scored $1 billion in new contracts in 2001. Nikitin was fired last year under controversy, and replaced by Valery Toryanin, a former senior manager at rival Sukhoi.



"A real battle is now going on where to produce the MiG-29s" for the Gorshkov, a source in the aviation industry said. Competing options are MiG''s own facility in the Moscow region, the Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod or Sukhoi''s facility in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.



Tuesday''s deal further bolsters Russia''s position as India''s No. 1 supplier. Conversely, India is Russia''s most important arms market after China.



But analyst Makienko said that despite this long relationship, Russia will have to make good on its obligations to ward off growing competition from Israel and France. Makienko said the Gorshkov deal is the first major arms contract with India since 2001, when a $700 million agreement was signed for 310 T-90C tanks to be either delivered or built under license.



The remaining 12 Su-30MKI fighters under a 1996 deal will be delivered later this year, an aviation official said.



India also wants to lease Akula-class nuclear submarines and long-range Tupolev strategic bombers. Russian defense minister Sergey Ivanov said there were no talks on the subs, but said he does not rule out delivery of the Tupolevs. Having received two out of three frigates last year, India is actively negotiating the purchase of three more, a source close to manufacturer Baltiisky Zavod said.



Analysts agreed that Russia has managed to hold its position as India''s primary arms supplier, despite New Delhi''s drive for diversification. "Our task is to stay within the top three suppliers," Makienko said.