Pivot Plan: President Putin Stresses Importance of Preparing Defense Industries for Civilian Production
First, defense enterprises should establish the high-tech civilian products production right now, so that after the army rearmament is over, their capacities aren’t idle. This task was set by Vladimir Putin today. The head of state held a meeting on production diversification in Bashkiria after visiting one of the key enterprises for the domestic aircraft building industry, the Ufa Engine-Building Association. They produce not only engines for military aircraft but also units for civil aircraft.
Pavel Zarubin reporting.
24 hours a day. At the Ufa Engine-Building Association, they work without days off. Engines for the Sukhoi fighters of various modifications and what allows airplanes to perform miracles in the air, the vectorable jet nozzle. Thanks to it, the fighter is ready for any aerobatics.
When the nozzles and engines are tested, even meter-thick walls rattle. But the main test is held in the sky, and Russian fighters have excellently passed several years in a row. There are a lot of orders. And now, at the largest aircraft engine production enterprise in Russia, they recall as a terrible dream the state in which the plant was in the 1990s.
Andrei Ovcharenko, fitter-assembler: We even produced dining sets, spoons, and forks.
- A military enterprise!
Andrei Ovcharenko, fitter-assembler: We had to survive somehow, we had to take such measures. Now, the difference is tangible, of course, there’s a lot of work.
Putin was at this plant in 2000. Today, he was shown what the company achieved in recent years and that a lot of promising developments are ahead.
The engine for the radically updated aircraft Il-112. This liner will replace the extremely outdated An-24 and An-26.
Vladimir Putin: When will it fly?
- Next year. This year, the first flight will take place. Next year, we'll get the production ready.
This plant produces engines for the fifth generation fighters and nodes for the newest Russian MC-21 plane.
It also produces engines for Russian helicopters.
- This is the VK-2500 engine. It's part of the import substitution program. It'll replace Ukrainian engines".
The employees seem to be very satisfied with their work. In conversation with the President, they ask to especially reward successful enterprises. Notes of acknowledgments and certificates of merit are good, but they aren’t enough.
- In the Soviet times, there was such a tradition to award enterprises with commemorative medals and orders. And now, our plant is also in the lead at the moment. Is it possible to restore this tradition?
Vladimir Putin: Let me just kiss you. I congratulate you. Now, about your question. This practice is from the Soviet times, but it was also stopped in the Soviet times because analysis showed at that time that, in spite of all those orders and medals, labor productivity in these enterprises didn’t increase, the results didn’t improve.
As it often happens when talking with young employees, mortgage rates were discussed in the conversation. They fell sharply, but you always want more.
Vladimir Putin: You're a young man, do you have children?
- I do.
Vladimir Putin: How many?
- One.
Vladimir Putin: Will you have a second child?
- Yes, may God give.
Vladimir Putin: May God give. And then, you can participate in the program, according to which, I recently spoke about it, the mortgage rates won’t exceed six percent for people like you, who have a second and third child, and everything that’s beyond it will be compensated by the state.
The staff of this and other defense enterprises throughout Russia will need to prove in the coming years that they’re able to fulfill a very ambitious task, to increase the civil products volume to 50%. After all, new equipment allows doing this.
Vladimir Putin: "It’s sometimes hard to believe that we’re doing this, that we were able to organize production at this level and class. However, the production lines mustn’t stay idle in the future when the volume of state defense orders inevitably declines once we’re past the peak of the Defence Ministry’s orders".
In this regard, of course, the largest Russian state-owned companies would be better off buying the goods and services they need from Russian enterprises. Thus, they’ll help the defense industry enterprises to get stronger.
Vladimir Putin: "I can predict the criticism in advance: "We need to buy the best the world has, not just domestic products." Naturally, this is true, but we must make domestic products the best in the world".
The Governor of the Tula Oblast, in which the most important defense enterprises are concentrated, doesn’t doubt that state-owned companies could start buying many products now.
Alexei Dumin, Governor of the Tula Oblast: "In the international market, we’ll face a fierce competition, and to ender it, we need to establish a stable inner demand, first of all, using state purchases of the ministries and state corporations".
TV viewers of Bashkortostan can now watch in excellent quality both this report and the broadcast of all major TV channels. The construction of the largest digital television network in the European part of Russia was completed in the republic. More than 200 TV towers, like the new ones in Ufa, were built in the republic. Bashkiria, part of which is located in the Ural mountains, received a high-quality and stable TV signal. GTRK Bashkortostan broadcasts TV and radio programs in Russian, Bashkir, and Tatar in digital quality even in remote villages. Every resident of the multinational republic can watch and listen to what they like.
Pavel Zarubin, Andrei Melnikov, Nikita Korunov, and Vladimir Ozerov, Vesti.