Latin American countries have ordered Russian weapons worth $1Bln - Russian Service for Military-Technical Cooperation
SANTIAGO (Chile). March 29 (Interfax-AVN) - The book of foreign orders for Russian weapons exceeds $50 billion, the deputy director of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Anatoly Punchuk, told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday.
"As far as the order book is concerned, today it stands at more than $50 billion," Punchuk said.
"Latin America accounts for approximately 2% of this amount," he added.
Helicopters enjoy the greatest popularity in the region, said Punchuk, who leads Russia's delegation to the FIDAE 2016 International Air and Space Fair, due to open in Chile's capital Santiago on Tuesday.
"Russia views Latin America as one of the promising markets for promoting domestic military-purpose products," Punchuk said.
Today, Russia's major partner is Venezuela, to which a substantial volume of Russian weapons and military hardware of different types have been delivered, he said.
In recent years, Russian hardware, including helicopters, has also been delivered to Brazil and Peru, which successfully operate it today.
"We are placing high hopes on the intensification of military-technical cooperation with Argentina and Mexico. Both countries need to acquire high-quality helicopters. We are able to meet these needs. We are also ready to cooperate with the Argentines in the sphere of the joint manufacturing of naval hardware," Punchuk said.
"Russia has always given special attention to the FIDAE exhibition. Even though no export contracts have been signed with Chile so far, we will continue our systematic marketing work," he said.