Russia and China to ink SU-30 MK supply contract?

Negotiations between Russian and Chinese specialists on the supply, starting in 2003, of a third batch of forty multifunctional Russian fighter planes SU-30 MK will most probably end up with signing a contract. This was said to RIA Novosti on Tuesday by a source in a defense industry association of the Russian Control Systems Agency /RASU/, which supplies avionics for this kind of fighters.

"Since 1999 Russia has been supplying, under two previous contracts, two batches of such fighters to China, 40 in each batch. Now they can be machines fit for service in marine aviation", said the source.

A similar report appeared in the media on Tuesday without specifying the time when the supply of the new fighter batch begins. The sum of the upcoming contract is 1.5 billion dollars, said the report. China has paid 1.8 billion dollars for each of the first two Su-30MK batches.

The Russian Committee for Military-Technical Cooperation with Foreign Countries /KVTS/, Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosoboronoexport (state arms trader), Sukhoi Aviation Military-Industrial Complex /AVPK/ which developed these fighters, refuse to confirm or comment this information, which has come to hand at RIA Novosti.