Russia's Government to Push Private Defence Companies toward Mergers

Speaking at a press conference, Ilya Klebanov, Russia's Minister of Industry, Science, and Technologies, said his ministry would push private military industrial companies toward mergers by whatever means. 'I have already begun actually scaring private company owners into merging by saying that unless they stop impeding the concentration of resources, we will review intellectual property rules', he said.

Mr. Klebanov further said his ministry was planning to create two large shipbuilding holding companies in Russia's North-West, one of them around the two existing nuclei, the state unitary companies Rubin and Admiralty Wharves. The second one should absorb such privately controlled joint-stock enterprises as the Northern Wharf and Baltiisky Zavod (Baltic Plant).

'We understand that there is a problem, meaning that the Northern Wharf and Baltic Plant are mostly private property', the minister said. However, he envisioned the possibility that, if intellectual property rules were revised, the government's share in these companies might become larger than the privately owned stock portions. 'When we did this in relation to the Perm Motors', Mr. Klebanov continued to say, 'we found that governmental property in that company should come to over 75%. At this time, we are pondering the problem of how to do this again without being accused of nationalizing private industry.'