Production of airplanes and helicopters in Russia falls by 42% this year
The economic activity of "Aircraft, including space, and related equipment" production in the first quarter of 2019 fell by 42.3% compared with the same period of 2018, reported the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, Rosstat.
This is the largest decline among all components of the industrial production, excluding the agglomeration of coal, anthracite and brown coal, and production of thermo-coal, which fell by 82%.
The article of Russian Classifier of Economic Activities OKVED includes the production of both civil and military equipment. However, data on the number of such products, which Rosstat also publishes, disclose only the civilian products, report RBC news agency with reference to the press service of Rosstat.
Earlier, RBC reported that, last year, the aircraft, including spacecraft, production fell by 13.5% after strong growth for at least four years. Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Yury Borisov, later explained that the production of aircraft (both civil and military) in 2018 decreased by 12.7%, and in the missile and space industry by 4.1%.
According to Borisov, the decline in the aviation, missile and space industries was due to a decline in government orders for military products.
According to the most recent information from Rosstat, in 2017 Russia produced 70 helicopters and 21 civil aircraft. This includes seven helicopters and five aircraft that were assembled in the first quarter of 2017. Data for 2018 is not available yet.
According to the data for 2010, the production of “other kind of vehicles”, which includes not only aircraft, helicopters and spacecraft, but also railway locomotives and wagons, accounted for 5.3% of the total industrial production.