Dmitry Shugayev, the head of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, has expressed the hope that Russia and India will sign contracts for the joint production of the Kalashnikov assault rifles AK-203 and Ka-226 helicopters before the end of 2019.

Kalashnikov AK-203 assault rifle (Picture source Kalashnikov)

"We have two very serious projects: to organize the production of the AK-203 Kalashnikov assault rifles and create our joint venture for the production of Ka-226 helicopters. Hopefully, we will begin negotiations on the contracts and will be able to sign them before the end of this year," Shugayev said at the Eastern Economic Forum.

"We hope that all the technical questions, including the price issues, which we used to have, have ultimately been solved," he said.

The Indo-Russian Rifles Pvt Ltd enterprise will launch the production of AK-203 assault rifles at Korwa Ordnance Factory in the town of Korwa located in the Amethi district in the Indian state of Uttar-Pradesh.

Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the creation of a joint Russian-Indian venture for the production of AK-203 assault rifles will make it possible to take the military-technical cooperation of the two countries to a new level.

The Russian-Indian joint venture will deliver more than 600,000 AK-203 assault rifles to the Indian Defense Ministry, Vladimir Drozhzhov, deputy director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, said earlier.