KYIV, Sept 20 – Ukraine, which has failed to win a tender to supply military cargo aircraft to NATO, will present two of the planes at an air show in China in a bid to promote its planes in Asia, an industry official said on Wednesday.
Andry Savenko, an Antonov design bureau spokesman, told Reuters a new Ukrainian-Russian Antonov An-70 military transport plane and a Ukrainian-designed An-124-100 heavy cargo plane would take part in the air show set for November.
“China is an immense market, and we aim to boost our cooperation with this country especially in the aviation sector,” Savenko said.
Savenko also said the bureau, which exported several hundreds of aircraft to China in Soviet times, wanted to resume its previous lucrative ties with Beijing.
Savenko said Ukraine was ready to sell new aviation technologies to China as well as to export its planes directly.
“We have too much modern technology but a lack of money. We are ready to sell them,” he said.
Earlier this year, Antonov said the government was considering a sale of an An-70 production license to China. Last year Ukraine sold a production license for its new passenger aircraft Antonov An-140 to Iran.
The An-70, designed more than five years ago, can carry 35 tons of cargo for 3,800 km (2,400 miles) at a cruising speed of 750 km (470 miles) per hour.
Last year, the Ukrainian-Russian Medium Transport Aircraft consortium offered an upgraded version of the aircraft in a tender to supply European armed forces with new air transport, but lost to Airbus Industrie’s planned A400M.
