Is Russia preparing to "localize" weapons for Vietnam?
A Russian expert said that the country needs to prepare in the direction of Vietnam requesting "localization" of production of weapons purchased from Russia.
Russian weapons account for 88% of Vietnam's imported weapons volume.
Recently, Russian Presidential Assistant for Military-Technical Cooperation Vladimir Kozhin announced that Moscow and Hanoi are negotiating new military contracts to further strengthen the close military cooperation between the two countries.
Commenting on this statement, Mr. Andrei Frolov, editor-in-chief of the magazine 'Arms Export', affirmed that bilateral procurement contracts with Vietnam occupy an important position in the structure of Russia's arms and military equipment exports.
In terms of the overall field, the position of Soviet/Russian weapons in Vietnam remains very solid, and among the recently signed major contracts, we can mention the agreement on supplying Hanoi with Russian T-90S main battle tanks and T-90SK command tanks - Mr. Frolov said.
Although Russian Presidential Aide Kozhin did not provide details on the content of the negotiations between Moscow and Hanoi, there is reason to assume that it is about new types of military equipment for the air force or army (fighters and tanks). In addition, the two sides may negotiate the supply of warships (surface ships) to the Vietnamese Navy.
Here we can recall the contract signed in the late 90s, that is, Russia provided Vietnam with two K-300P Bastion-P shore-to-ship missile complexes, with P-800 Yakhont supersonic missiles (export version of P-800 Oniks, Onyx) to deal with enemy warships.
In addition, it is worth mentioning the recently implemented contract for the supply of 6 submarines of project 636.1. From 2013 to 2017, Russia completed the transfer to Vietnam of 6 diesel-electric submarines of the Varshavyanka (Kilo) class, capable of anti-ship, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare.
According to this expert, the contract for the supply of submarines is the largest in Russia's warship export industry, as the deal includes the construction of a naval base, a submarine training center, a repair plant and a series of other related items.
Mr. Frolov commented that these large contracts led to the fact that, in the years 2012-2016, Russian products accounted for 88% of the total volume of imported weapons of Vietnam and these were mainly the main combat vehicles of the Vietnam People's Army.
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| Russian weapons play a key role in the Vietnamese Army's arsenal. |
Russia needs to prepare for Vietnam's request to 'localize' weapons
Although appreciating the success of Russian arms exports to the Vietnamese market, expert Andrei Frolov emphasized that Russia should not be satisfied with this achievement, because all arms manufacturers in the world now want to enter South Asia.
Andrei Frolov said that in recent years, Vietnam has implemented a policy of multilateralizing military cooperation and diversifying arms suppliers. This has led to the fact that the Russian defense industry and arms exports have suffered a number of failures in this country.
For example, with automatic rifles, the famous Russian rifle manufacturer "Kalashnikov" was defeated by an Israeli defense company in the tender for the supply of new assault rifles, as a result of which Vietnam did not purchase Russian rifles.
According to Russian experts, this shows that, although Moscow and Hanoi have a traditional friendship and cooperation since the Soviet era, Vietnam will not bet all on Russian weapons, but will buy what it considers best for itself.
Therefore, to win in this market, Russia needs to propose an optimal weapons supply plan for each customer. This can be learned from India's strategy, where New Dehli sets conditions for localizing weapons according to the "Made in India" principle.
The Russian expert noted that Vietnam has not yet implemented a clear policy to localize Russian weapons production facilities on its territory (possibly because some basic military sciences in Vietnam have not yet caught up with the requirements for modern weapons production).
In fact, that simplifies the signing of any military contracts with Hanoi. But Russia should not be satisfied with such easy conditions, because sooner or later Vietnam's science will have new advances and self-production of weapons is an objective necessity.
Therefore, although at present Vietnam does not make a request for localization of production, this does not mean that in the near future there will not be such a request. Therefore, Russia needs to prepare in advance for this situation - the editor-in-chief of the Russian Arms Export magazine affirmed.
