Since its first emergence in 1996 at Eurosatory, held once in two years, Russia has been increasing the number of exhibits and floorspace.
At Eurosatory'2004 Rosoboronexport, organiser of the entire Russian exhibition will present over 20 enterprises (17 in 2002, 13 in 2000) of the Russian military-industrial complex. Occupying 350 square meters of floorspace (300 in 2002), they will show over 300 items of military products as dummies, models, charts and video films, RIA Novosti learnt on Thursday from the official spokesman for Rosoboronexport.
"Visitors will have the unique opportunity of getting a sidelight on the latest developments in the armour and proposals to update earlier specimens", he said.
"In the context of Russia's interaction with countries of NATO and a new phase of rearmament of newcomers to the North Atlantic Alliance from Central and East Europe, possibilities to implement joint projects with Western countries in the interests of third countries are greatly expanding", he said.
By way of example he cited "updating up to the NATO level of the Russian-made armour, for instance the T-72M tank".
"Among the most promising directions of Russia's military-technical cooperation with countries in Central and East Europe are - delivery of spare parts and accessories for Russian-made military hardware, arranging repair of machines for the land forces and air defence earlier supplied by Russia at Russian repair works and enterprises of the ordering countries", said the Rosoboronexport spokesman. All such areas of cooperation will be reflected in the Russian exhibition.
Eurosatory has been held since 1992 by the French association of arms manufacturers for the land forces under the patronage of the French Defence Ministry. Earlier, the exhibition was housed at Le Bourget near Paris. It is for the second time that Eurosatory will be held at the exhibition centre Villepint, to the north of the French capital.
In the preceding show, enjoying quite a success, 830 works from 39 countries participated; the number of visitors exceeded 38,000.
