KA-32 turned Peking duck
The site of one of the leading newspapers of the People's Republic of China, "Renmin Ribao", has published a message about the launch of production of Ka-32 helicopters of the Russian design in Beijing. The company "Helicopters of Russia" refute this information, noting, however, that cooperation with Chinese helicopter builders is not excluded in the near future.
“The production of Russian large Ka-32 helicopters is starting in Beijing,” a note with such a headline was published today on the website of one of the world's leading newspapers: the Chinese edition of People's Daily. The material says that the project starts on a common basis aviation industry in Beijing's Ping District and is China's first such helicopter production program.
The newspaper clarifies that in the first phase of the project 30 large helicopters will be released, the annual production will be about 30 billion yuan, and over the course of years 5-7 will be expected to switch to more than 60% localization of parts. "Such a move will shape the ability to develop independently, design, manufacture and assemble new types of helicopters in China," the publication says.
The company "Helicopters of Russia" surprised by the statement of the Chinese edition. According to the interlocutor of AviaPort in the holding, at the moment there are no agreements on the localization of helicopter production in China.
A note about the Ka-32 is far from the first case of the appearance of information about mastering the assembly of Russian-made aircraft in the PRC. So at the end of May of this year, the federal media said that Russia and China were negotiating the joint creation of a passenger long-haul aircraft based on the IL-96. According to the Vedomosti newspaper, it was to be produced in the territory of the PRC.
You should not assume that information of this kind has no real basis. The last five-year plan in the People's Republic of China is devoted to the development of the aircraft industry, and our neighbor is really interested in foreign technologies. According to the AviaPort source in the helicopter-building holding, the Chinese are seriously counting on Ka-32 production on their territory, and Russian Helicopters have already received several proposals from Chinese companies for cooperation in this matter. Specific names, however, have not yet been announced. A note by a Chinese newspaper, according to the source, "rather, gives the desired for the real."
Meanwhile, at the ILA-2012 air show held in Berlin in early September, Dmitry Petrov, Director General of the Russian Helicopters holding, said that the possibility of organizing the licensed assembly of helicopters in China is under consideration. "If we, together with our Chinese partners, come to the conclusion that the assembly of a model in the territory of the People's Republic of China will be more profitable than export delivery, then we will begin work on organizing assembly plants there," Interfax quoted him as saying. D.Petrov noted that it is profitable for companies to build their assembly plants when ordering middle class helicopters from 50.
The potential of the Chinese air transport market began to grow dynamically after the authorities opened the lower airspace for commercial operators. Due to this, the market demand seriously exceeds the number of Ka-32 that is being used in China today: over the past two years, only one such machine has been sold to the PRC, operated by the Institute of Polar Research. Also Ka-32А11ВС won the tender of the General Directorate of Public Security of the city of Ordos, the car in the fire-prevention variant will be delivered to the customer in the near future. Now in the "Helicopters of Russia" they are not ready to give an unambiguous assessment of the market for China in this dimension, but the contract for the supply of X-NUMX Mi-52E helicopters to the Chinese company Poly Technologies for the 171-2012 years is significant.
Cooperation between Russia and the PRC in the development of aircraft technology is a topic that will inevitably develop in the coming years. China is ready to invest in the development of foreign technologies, as its own projects do not yet reach a competitive level. And now Russia is ready to go on this cooperation, consider the first persons of the state. During the APEC summit, President Vladimir Putin said that the Chinese partners were working in two directions. "The first is the creation on the basis of one of the Russian helicopters of a large modern helicopter," he said. The second direction the president called the development of wide-body aircraft. In general, according to him, "Russia is ready to cooperate with China in all directions." And this suggests that news About the assembly of the Ka-32 in China, it may not be for long just a Peking duck.
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