Today the Greek Development minister, Hristos Folias and Russian Industry and Power Engineering minister, Viktos Hristienko signed a co-operation agreement in the fields of the aviation and pharmaceutical industries. According to the agreement, an exploitation and support centre will be made in Greece, for the fire-fighter plane Beriev 200 together with the Russian company Irkut.  Right now, Greece has a similar airplane, but Russia doesn’t hide its ambitions to pressure more sales, and also its expectations that Athens will lobby those airplanes on the European market. “We haven’t made a commitment to buy any airplanes,” definitively said Hristos Folias.

Viktor Hristienko was also very clear, “There isn’t a plane in the world like Beriev 200. it is our interest to sell those planes on the Greek as well as on the European markets. The scale and the profits from the exploitation and support centre are directly dependent from the sales of those planes. We expect Greece to make the sales easier on the European market.”

The second part of the agreement concerns the development and electrical devices for the new MS-21 airplane (on the photo). It is a new generation average routed passenger plane with 150-180 seats, which will enter the market during 2014 and substitute Boeing 737 and Airbus 320. At this stage, the agreement specifies co-operation in the development and testing of electrical components, but not producing them in Greece.

Hristos Folias and Viktor Hristienko also signed a co-operation agreement in the field of development and producing medicines.