During a visit of the Syrian President Bashar Asad to Russia in January 2005, the leaders of the two countries discussed the issues of military and technical cooperation between the two countries.

The negotiations were attended by Nikolay Malykh, Director General of the Federal State-owned Unitary Enterprise URALVAGONZAVOD. He came to an agreement with the Syrian delegation about supply of spares for tanks in service with Syria.

At present the Syrian Army is equipped with large quantities of Soviet-produced armoured vehicles, in particular, more than 2,000 T-55 MBTs, 1,000 T-62 MBTs and 1,500 T-72 MBTs. So, the above-mentioned agreement will be quite of use for the plant which is about to complete the supplies of T-90s to India.

Nowadays the enterprise is experiencing a good financial situation. This enables it to re-equip itself. For example, on 28 January 2005 it carried out negotiations with the ALTA company of the Czech Republic which supplies up-to-date metal-cutting equipment to Uralvagonzavod. In 2004, 20 machine tools of Czech origin were installed at this Nizhny Tagil-located enterprise, with the same number of new machine tools of Czech origin being planned for installation this year.

In February 2005, the contract of Nikolay Malykh with the Federal Industry Agency will be over. Most probably, the contract will be prolonged, in spite of the fact that Uralvagonzavod is going to be privatised quite soon.

Sergyi Wey
15.02.2005

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