Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

The defense industry plays an important role in the economy of every confident country in the world, including Azerbaijan, whose defense industry is expanding with each passing year.

In 2017, the enterprises of Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense Industry continued work on the production of defense products, the state agency told Trend on January 19.

The ministry noted that the volume of defense and special purpose production increased by 10 percent compared to 2016.

The enterprises of the ministry launched serial production of the new generation weapons – sniper rifle Yalguzag (Steppenwolf), mortars and grenade launchers of various caliber, smoke grenades for armored vehicles, optical collimating sight, hand grenade F-1, fragmentation mines, etc.

Also, on the basis of the acquired technology, the development was completed and serial production was launched of four types of barrels for machine guns, various types of fuzes for ammunition of different calibers.

Defense Industry Minister Yavar Jamalov said on January 19 that last year, based on the contracts concluded by order of the Azerbaijani power structures, various defense products were produced and handed over to customers.

The minister stressed that along with fulfilling the orders of the power structures of Azerbaijan, the ministry exports military products to more than ten countries.

In 2017, the volume of exported defense products grew by 2.3 times compared with 2016, noted Jamalov. Along with defense production in 2017, work was continued to expand the civilian production.

The minister added that during 2017, the Ministry’s enterprises implemented research and development works on the creation of 136 items of defense products.

In general, the Defense Industry Ministry had made great strides over the past years. The total volume of production at the enterprises of the ministry increased by 6.7 times and the output of defense products increased by 42 times in 2016 compared to 2007. During this period, the total number of items of defense products has grown from 213 to 1,200.

Azerbaijan leaves behind many CIS and regional countries to take its place among the first 58 strongest militaries of the world, according to the U.S.-based Global Firepower survey center. The country, which is in war with neighboring Armenia over the latter's groundless territorial claims during more than 20 years, keeps in focus the armament. While creating its own armament, Azerbaijan works closely with leading companies and firms in various fields of military industry.

The Azerbaijan-made products include such weapons as mortars of various caliber and their ammunition, 5.45-millimeter machine guns, 7.62-mm general-purpose machine guns, sniper rifles of special purpose, Matador and Marauder armored personnel carriers. Moreover, Azerbaijani military factories produce 30-mm automatic grenade launcher complex, sight for ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft installation, ammo of various calibers, PG-7V grenade launchers, unmanned aerial vehicles, aerial bombs for a training exercise and many other weapons.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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