Russia’s Rosoboronexport monopoly weaponry exporter turns 20 years old. It was established on November 4, 2000 with the right to export the entire range of military products. Prior to that, deliveries of Russian arms to the world market were made by Rosvooruzhenie, Promexport, and a number of manufacturers.
“Rosoboronexport has become a leader in the international arms market over the past two decades and achieved strong results in promoting products manufactured by domestic enterprises. Its key financial indicators — the order book and the value of deliveries — have increased fivefold since 2000. Over the years, Rosoboronexport has signed more than 26K contracts with its partners and delivered over $180 bln worth of products to 122 countries around the world. A high level of competence, attention to trends and customer needs, demonstrated over the years, clearly suggest that the company has good prospects for expanding its footprint and deepening cooperation with its partners,” Sergey Chemezov, CEO of Rostec corporation and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosoboronexport, said.
Russia has consistently ranked second among the world’s exporters of arms and military equipment. In two decades, foreign customers have been supplied with products for all services of the armed forces.
“Our foreign partners have received products worth over $85 bln for their Air Force. Exports of equipment for Air Defense and Ground Forces exceeded $30 bln for each of these services of the armed forces and $28 bln for the Navy,” Alexander Mikheev, Director General of Rosoboronexport, said.
A key challenge facing Rosoboronexport is to bring the latest high-tech weapons and military equipment to the global arms market. It can be expected that Rosoboronexport will launch about 50 new modern weapons and pieces of military equipment on the global arms market in the next five to seven years. Potential “bestsellers” include products developed and manufactured by Rostec subsidiaries: Armata-based armored vehicles assembled at UralVagonZavod (UVZ), Su-57E fifth-generation fighter jet from UAC, Ka-52K ship-based helicopter, and the upgraded Mi-28NE from Russian Helicopters. Among the products of other companies, the Antey-4000 air defense missile system from the Almaz-Antey Air and Space Corporation should be mentioned.
In addition to the export of final products for the armed forces, Rosoboronexport has successfully extended its foreign trade competencies to the construction of infrastructure facilities, provision of space services, and training of foreign specialists in the operation of Russian products.
For foreign customers Rosoboronexport is a unique one-stop shop offering a full package of services for the export of high-tech military and civilian products and technology transfer. Rosoboronexport pays special attention to industrial partnership projects with foreign customers and has a large portfolio of fulfilled projects for licensed production and joint ventures in India, Jordan, Malaysia, Vietnam and other countries.
“Today, the world’s economies require localization and are interested in technology transfer and job creation. Therefore, Southeast Asian and North African countries, India, and China have already established their own industrial platforms. Rosoboronexport is ready to work on them and, together with industry and Rostec State Corporation, promote Russian high-tech solutions, develop new products jointly with partners,” Alexander Mikheev noted.
The promotion of dual-use and civilian products to foreign markets has become a new and promising area of Rosoboronexport’s activities. The company has extensive experience in integrated supplies of utility, firefighting and other specialized equipment. Today, it also delivers non-military and service weapons and is active in the markets of high-tech security equipment, medical equipment, hospitals, and special equipment for public and private entities. Rosoboronexport has set up a special business unit that will deal only with non-military products and assist companies that have no experience in independent foreign trade activities. This is a new direction that the company is implementing together with defense and civil enterprises.