Russian president Boris Yeltsin has ordered urgent measures to stop bankruptcy proceedings against the Myasishchev Design Bureau's Experimental Plant and the NIIRP Radio Instruments Research Institute.
Yeltsin has instructed the government to submit to parliament amendments to the laws on bankruptcy related to "-enterprises manufacturing products which are of strategic importance to national security".
The proposed changes in legislation would not allow dying defence industry plants to change owners or attract outside investors through privatisation auctions, despite the fact that so far this year the government has paid the defence industry only 6% of the funds it had approved for this year. The move may be a sign of the promised new emphasis by the government of prime minister Yevgeny Primakov to revive the flagging military industry.
Even those fortunate enterprises working on export contracts cannot obtain money for products already delivered because of the crisis in Russia's bank system. About $300 million is estimated to be stuck in ailingRussian banks.
Rosvoorouzhenie, Russia's state arms sales corporation, has asked its foreign clients to delay payments until the situation with the problem banks has been resolved.
The KnAAPO plant at Komsomolsk-na-Amur cannot get $300 million already allocated by China for deliveries of machinery and tooling to launch licence production of the Sukhoi Su-27 at Shenyang, and the Izhevsk Electromechanical plant is still waiting for $50 million for surface-to-air missile systems it shipped overseas, which the customer is ready to transfer.
Many enterprises have come to a complete standstill. The Chkalov NAPO plant at Novosibirsk, which produces the Antonov An-38, is one of many that has introduced "extended forced vacations" for its employees until the end of the year.
Source: Flight International
