News / Economy

Tupolev to let Iran make, market its planes

Saturday, 26 December 2015 3:47 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 27 December 2015 12:03 PM ]

Tupolev says it is ready to provide the license for production of its planes to Iran so that the country would build its planes and sell them in regional markets.

Russia’s aviation giant Tupolev said on Saturday that it is ready to provide the license for production of its planes to Iran so that the country would build its planes and sell them in regional markets.

The announcement was made by a top Tupolev official who visited Iran for a major exhibition of Russian enterprises in the Iranian capital Tehran.

IRNA news agency has quoted the deputy marketing director of Tupolev as saying that the company is even ready to provide Iran with trainings for its aviation experts as well as the transfer of technical know-how.

“Iran can make planes under the license of Tupolev and export them to the markets in the Middle East, Asia and Africa,” the official has told IRNA.

“This will benefit both countries and is a typical format of cooperation in the world. We earlier had a similar format of cooperation with China,” he added.

Nevertheless, the official added that for this to become materialized, Iran and Russia will need to create a Russian-Iranian bank to handle the related financial proceedings pertaining to Tupolev’s proposed partnership.

He further emphasized that Tupolev is currently in talks with several Iranian airlines including Kish Air, Iran Air and Moghan Airlines to sell its planes to the companies.

Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said this past Tuesday that Tupolev is engaged in talks with Kish Air to sell 10-15 planes to the company.

Manturov added that the planes will be TU-204SM model.

The above announcements come as Iran had previously announced that it had discharged Tupolev from its aviation services as a result of a surge in air tragedies that largely involved planes from the Russian company.

"All Iranian airline companies have been asked to refurbish their air fleet and to replace Tupolev air planes with other planes," Reza Nakhjavani, the then head of Civil Aviation Organization of Iran, was quoted by the officials as saying in early 2011.

Iranian airliners were using 23 Tupolev airplanes at the time.

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