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Pogosyan Sees Military and Civilian Aircraft Growth

Enterprises of the aviation industry will supply the Defense Ministry with more than 800 new airplanes by 2020, said United Aircraft Corporation president Mikhail Pogosyan.

"The state armament program, which was adopted in December of last year, includes the delivery of more than 800 new aircraft to the Defense Ministry over the next 10 years, from 2011 to 2020," said Pogosyan, speaking on Thursday at the Moscow Aviation Institute.

Upgrading to modern aircraft will continue in the Russian army beyond 2020.

He noted that by 2020 the proportion of new equipment in the armed forces must be at least 70 percent.

"The government's decision [to re-equip] provides the opportunity for the industry to develop in a steady and [technologically] advanced way," Pogosyan said.

The UAC chief also spoke of Russia's potential to become a world-class provider of civilian passenger airplanes.

"In civil aviation, using the small number of aircraft that are currently produced, we must firmly establish ourselves as one of the three world leaders in this field," he said.

Pogosyan said United Aircraft has the task "to become a structure that will be able to compete in the global market," with the other two world leaders &mdash America's Boeing and Europe's Airbus.

"I think we have all the prerequisites for that," he said.

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