VLADIVOSTOK, March 26 (RIA Novosti, Anatoly Ilyukhov) - The Russian Armed Forces have been developing steadily and comprehensively in the past five years, the Russian defense minister said Sunday in a live interview with Russia's state TV channel RTR.
"We have already defined the quantity and the types of aircraft and other combat hardware, which we need to produce," said Sergei Ivanov who is also a deputy prime minister.
"Now it is important for our defense enterprises to fulfill state orders qualitatively and on time, and at prices lower than their managers would like to see," Ivanov said.
The deputy prime minister said that many heads of defense enterprises still hoped to receive large defense orders. But he added that Russia had switched to a market economy and defense producers should not count only on government orders and subsidies. "They must constantly look for other orders and seek the development of high-tech production," Ivanov said.
The deputy prime minister said there were a lot of enterprises in the country producing high-quality ships, missiles and space vehicles. However, they still produced few high-tech civilian products compared to foreign enterprises, Ivanov said.
