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Developing Russia’s defence industry and protecting intellectual property rights for defence industry products were the main subjects of discussion.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues.

On the agenda today we have a number of issues concerning our efforts to continue improving our military technology cooperation with foreign states.

We will discuss the current state of military technology cooperation and outlook with regard to particular partner countries, our biggest partners, and we will also examine the situation with protecting intellectual property rights for the military products that we supply. 

Before we start discussing these items, I want to note once again that we have achieved what we could call impressive results in our military technology cooperation with foreign states, and this is unquestionably our strategic choice and policy, which we intend to carry out in the future. It is important to take the needed steps and create new conditions for continuing to develop Russia’s defence industry and launch series production of new models of aviation and naval hardware, armoured vehicles, missiles and other equipment, which, I particularly stress, must go first and foremost to supply the needs of our own armed forces.

Development of promising new military technology and equipment will help us to expand our military technology ties with our established partners abroad and will lay the ground for Russian companies to enter new markets. Here, we need to make greater use of the opportunities offered by exhibitions and trade shows. In this respect, I note that Russia held several successful events over July-September this year: the International Maritime Defence Show in St Petersburg, in which more than 450 companies from 31 countries took part; the MAKS-2013 International Aviation and Space Salon in Moscow, in which more than 900 organisations from 44 countries took part, and finally, there was the Russian Arms Expo in Nizhny Tagil just recently, which attracted more than 400 organisations from 45 countries. New models of Russian arms and military equipment drew great attention from specialists from all of the participating countries. At the MAKS salon alone, contracts were signed for a value of over $21 billion.

I want to say a few words about the important issue of protecting intellectual property rights. The world arms market is rife with examples of illegal copying of others’ designs, and we have encountered these problems on past occasions. Our task is to ensure a high level of protection for our science-intensive goods and intellectual property, and defend the rights of Russian producers, companies and inventions’ creators.

We must develop a comprehensive system of legal protection for our goods. This is important for each individual producer and for strengthening Russia’s position in general on the high-tech markets. Protection for intellectual property rights will help to make Russian companies more attractive for investors and will open up opportunities for promising new forms of cooperation, including with foreign companies.

We must improve the intellectual property rights protection for Russian arms produced abroad in line with today’s international legal standards. This concerns not only the goods manufactured on the basis of contracts signed during the Soviet period, a case that particularly concerns Eastern Europe. This is an area where we still have problems to resolve, but I am talking also about legal protection of our latest arms models.

Colleagues, Russia values its reputation as a responsible player on the global arms market. We comply in full with the commitments we have taken on and respect the non-proliferation and arms control regimes. Russia’s laws allow us to supply arms to foreign states only in strict accordance with their laws. Russia signs arms contracts only with legitimate governments and for the sole purpose of enabling these countries to guarantee their defence capability and sovereignty.

At the same time, we always make a comprehensive evaluation of the particular circumstances that emerge in any given region. It is our principled position that arms supplies to illegal groups undermine the foundations of a country’s or region’s security or even of the world as a whole. I am sure that it would be possible to avoid many of the conflicts taking place around the globe if all arms producers followed the same approach as Russia.

Let’s begin our work.

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