RBC: India signed a $ 590 million contract for the production of Kalashnikov assault rifles … RBC writes about this.
The contract provides for the licensed production of 680 thousand AK-203 Kalashnikov assault rifles. The parties to the agreement were the Russian-Indian company Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited and the Indian Ministry of Defense. According to open sources, Kalashnikov owns 42 percent of the company's shares.
The deal was worth $ 590 million. Production is expected to start in the first quarter of 2022. Before that, it is necessary to sign a final contract, now the parties are in the final stage of project approval.
Now about half of Kalashnikov's orders come from the Russian Ministry of Defense. By 2025, the company hopes to increase its revenue by 60 percent compared to 2020, and to increase the share of civilian products to 30 percent from the current 25.
The media wrote about the launch of production under the license of Russian machine guns back in January 2021 … The Economic Times newspaper then noted that 671,427 AK-203 assault rifles were supposed to be produced, while the corresponding agreement implies the complete localization of weapons production and its possible export in the future. The cost of one machine made in India was estimated at 70 thousand Indian rupees ($ 958).