Oleg Artyukov: The Russian pursuit planes and Brazilian coffee

The Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is currently on his official visit to Russia. This event is of extreme importance for both countries. Brazil is the leading country in Latin America. Argentina was a candidate to take the first position on the list of Latin countries, but now it somewhere on the bottom of it, and everybody knows why. One may not say that Brazil is a happy country, without any economic problems – there are more than enough of them, but at least they are not that large, in comparison with what is happening in Argentina. Furthermore, it seems like the Brazilian government hopes to solve some of those problems owing to the expansion of cooperation with Russia.

In the meantime, Russia can gain a lot from cooperation from this state of Latin America, the perspectives for that are very favorable. President Cardoso stated that the commodity circulation between Russia and Brazil made up $1.5 billion pursuant to the results of the past year. The president added, this had been the highest point of relations between the two countries to date.

The presidents of Russia and Brazil had meetings, during which they outlined the fields of the future cooperation, for example the cooperation in the field of nuclear power. Russia has all the necessary technologies for that, and Brazil has a wish to get them. However, the full-scale cooperation in that field is not likely to be, if not taking account of the USA’s position. America will hardly have a wish to make up with the idea there is another country on the continent, possessing the nuclear technologies. So this is a matter of the future.

The Russian companies are promised to be granted the rights for the development and exploration of the mineral wealth, as well as for building the electric power stations, which may become the new stage in the development of relations between Russian and Brazil.

However, the majority of attention was paid to the information, which said, Brazil was going to acquire the Russian Su-35 pursuit planes. The news on the subject appeared a week before the actual visit of the Brazilian president, and the tone of the comments was rather sceptic due to the strong positions of the French companies in Brazil. President Cardoso was the person, who brought the intrigue into the picture: he said that the question pertaining to the choice of a supplier of the Brazilian Air Force, did not have the final decision. The advantage of the Russian offers is that if Brazil purchases the Russian Su-35 aircraft, then it will also get the technologies. Furthermore, the Russian planes are way cheaper, than the French ones.

However, the experts are not sure that the contract will be concluded. Most likely, Brazil will try to cut the price of the French aircraft. The arms market was divided long ago. So, if Russia and Brazil achieve something in this respect, then it will be a ground-breaking news.

Anyway, the strengthening of the Russian-Brazilian political cooperation meets the interests of both countries. The states managed to achieve complete mutual understanding on the most actual issues. Brazil supported Russia in its initiatives to join the World Trade Organization, Russia expressed its readiness to assist Brazil in getting the status of UN Security Council’s constant member.

Oleg Artyukov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov