Russia's arms export contracts exceed $7.5 bn

Russia has secured at least 7.5 billion dollars in arms contracts with foreign customers since the beginning of 2014, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

"This year Russia's arms producers have signed export contracts amounting to 7.5 billion dollars. As a result, the foreign contract portfolio remains firmly at the 50-billion-U.S.dollar mark," Xinhua quoted Putin as saying at a meeting on Russia's military-technical cooperation.

"At the moment foreign customers have received 10-billion-U.S. dollar Russian military hardware," equivalent to 70 percent of the overall supplies due in 2014, Tass news agency quoted Putin as saying.

Russia has developed long-term strategic partnership with those recipient countries, Putin said, adding that such close relations should be maintained and enhanced.

"It is necessary to work more actively with our traditional partners and new clients," as Russia is planning to introduce new systems of flexible settlement and lending, wide-range logistic support, as well as other modern and effective product promotion mechanisms, Putin noted.

Russia was prepared to not only sell armaments, but also for the joint production, maintenance and upgrade of the weapons, the president added.

Putin urged a wider use of Russia's competitive technological edge, to fulfill "major defense-industrial potentials, Russia's reputation as a reliable partner and the high demand for Russian armaments".

He said in July Russia exported arms worth 5.6 billion dollars in the first six months of the year, and that the overall portfolio of export orders has grown to nearly 50 billion dollars.

Russia, already the world's top arms exporter, sold some 15.7 billion dollars worth of weapons abroad -- primarily guns, missiles and fighter jets -- in 2013. Last year, Russia was second only to the US in terms of arms sales volume.

Russian-made weapons are supplied to 66 countries, and Moscow has military-technical cooperation agreements with 85 countries.