MOSCOW: The drone industry is very promising, and one trillion rubles ($12 billion) will be invested in it in the future, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
The Sputnik reported that Putin visited the Rudnevo industrial park, where drones are being manufactured, to hold a meeting on the development of unmanned aviation. During the visit, Putin called the Rudnevo park “the new industrial face of Moscow.”
“A very important field in the country, very promising, just now my colleagues and I looked and I saw the presented figure, in the near future the volume [of investment] is 500 billion [rubles], but they immediately agreed with me that this is a very conservative estimate, most likely, if we are all together, and the state will also work, then it will be a trillion [rubles], this will be the volume, a trillion rubles,” Putin said during the presentation of organisations working in the field of unmanned aerial systems.
During the meeting, the president said that Russia has the potential in the drone industry to ensure the necessary level of technological sovereignty, adding that Russia “can and should not just import something but go one step ahead of our competitors” in the field. The president noted that it is necessary to maximize the localisation of the development and production of breakthrough technologies and “put the production of promising, competitive models on stream.”
Putin noted that it is necessary to digitalise the organisation of air traffic in Russia to reach the required level of development of unmanned aviation, adding that “there will be no development of unmanned aviation” if the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, continues to work in the same mode as today.
The president told the meeting that it is necessary to create special operators who will be buying drones to lease them, as it is “another great mechanism for expanding demand.” Putin stressed the need to help businesses in the field at all levels but noted that it is necessary to prevent “monopolies, to preserve the competitive principles of the industry, based on a balance of interests of entrepreneurs, investors, and the state.”
Drones should be used to prevent and deal with the outcomes of natural disasters and emergencies, Putin said. The president also noted the opportunities for the widespread use of unmanned aerial transport in agriculture, which, he said, would increase the efficiency and competitiveness of Russia in the field.
The president also backed the idea of teaching schoolchildren to construct, assemble, and operate drones, saying that relevant training courses are needed in a variety of fields, including agriculture, energy, and transportation. – BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
