Kalashnikov Group of Companies has entered into a largest deal with the Armed Forces of India. It is reported by RBC.
Contract provides licensed production of 680,000 Kalashnikov AK-203 machines. The parties to the contract were the Russian-Indian company Indo-Russian Rifles Private Limited and the Defense of India. According to data from open sources, “Kalashnikov” owns 42 percent of the company’s shares.
The amount of the transaction was 590 million dollars. It is expected that production will be launched in the first quarter of 2022. Prior to this, it is necessary to sign the final contract, now the parties are in the final stage of project agreement.
Now about half of orders “Kalashnikov” falls on the Ministry of Defense of Russia. By 2025, the company hopes to increase revenue by 60 percent compared with the 2020th, and increase the share of civilian products up to 30 percent from the current 25.
The launch of the production under the license of Russian automata media wrote in January 2021. The Economic Times newspaper then noted that the release of 671,427 AK-203 automata is assumed, while the relevant agreement involves the full localization of the production of weapons and its possible exports in the future. The cost of one machine produced in India was estimated at 70 thousand Indian rupees (958 dollars).