OREANDA-NEWS  The Ministry of Finance has proposed to change the procedure for controlling the expenditure of funds from the National Welfare Fund (NWF) of Russia to finance the production of domestic aircraft. Vedomosti writes about this with reference to the draft government decree.

We are talking about the abolition of mandatory control over the self-sufficiency of infrastructure projects for the industry, under which companies receiving money must report on their spending to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development every quarter.

Now the government is going to simplify the scheme, which is why funds will be transferred to securities in tranches. The state-owned company will be able to receive each new tranche only after it has spent the previously allocated money in full.

The source of the publication explained that the idea concerns financing projects of a comprehensive program for the development of civil aviation in general. The reason for such changes was the revision of the very meaning of the task. Officials recognized that it is not commercial in the conventional sense of the word, but strategic. Thus, the economic sense is being pushed into the background, and the de facto authorities recognize that the costs of the program are unlikely to ever pay off in full.

In mid-January, it was reported that the government would allocate another 283.3 billion rubles from the National Welfare Fund for the construction of aircraft. The funds will be used to buy back Rostec's 15-year bonds at a preferential rate of 1.5 percent. Within the state corporation, the money will be used for the production of parts and assemblies of airliners, scientific and development work, and modernization of production.

The comprehensive program for the development of the aviation industry until 2030 provides for the construction of about a thousand new aircraft, which should replace foreign and outdated equipment. Of these, about 600 are accounted for by large civilian airliners — Tu-214 (115 aircraft), SJ (142 aircraft), MS-21 (270 aircraft), IL-114-300 (70 aircraft) and IL-96 (12 aircraft).

By the beginning of 2024, the backlog was observed in all directions, with the exception of the IL-96, the construction of which should begin only in 2025. The SJ and MS-21 versions, which should go into mass production (depending on the volume of import substitution), have not yet made their first flight. Plans for the production of the Tu-214 in 2023 could not be fulfilled, and the construction of the Il-114-300 was officially postponed due to the unavailability of the engine.