Western countries carrying out industrial espionage are hunting not only for promising Russian developments, data and parameters of weapons samples, but also for the most valuable specialists, Russian Minister of Trade and Industry, Denis Manturov told Sputnik.
He reasoned that Moscow is ahead of Western countries in arms production and intends to maintain the high pace.
"I don't want to boast, but I can say that we started and accelerated the pace of production earlier than Western countries," Manturov noted.
He added that the production and supply of weapons to the Russian Armed Forces in 2023 on a number of items increased by 10–12 times, and the actual volume of the state order for weapons in 2023 has doubled.
"Due to certain nuances, I cannot talk about the specific nomenclature of supplies and financing, but, believe me, the numbers are huge," the minister pointed out.
Fertilizer Production
Fertilizer production in Russia will grow by 8% to 58.5 million tons in 2023, while exports are expected to increase by 5% to 33.6 million tons, Manturov revealed. The figures are expected to increase further in 2024, he added.
The minister noted that Russia is one of the world's leaders in terms of both the volume of exports and the quality of mineral fertilizers.
"The largest consumers of Russian mineral fertilizers - Brazil, India and, by the way, even the US - will not give up such high-quality products," Manturov pointed out.
A Turn to Friendly Countries
The minister noted that this year the structure of Russia's non-resource, non-energy exports has significantly changed towards friendly countries, reflecting Russia's long-term choice.
"Our long-term choice is to turn not only to the East, but to friendly states in general," he stressed.
As an example, Manturov cited the growth of such exports "many times and even dozens of times" to a number of African countries.
On December 17, an agreement was signed between Russian automaker AvtoVAZ and Ethio-Engineering Group on the start of production of Russian LADA cars in Ethiopia.
Besides, in November, a company from Ghana received a license to sell LADA cars.