Meeting of the Russian-Bulgarian Working Group on the Military-Technical Cooperation

Rosoboronexport, On the 27 – 28th of June, 2006, in Sofia, Bulgaria, the 5th Meeting of the Russian-Bulgarian working group on the Military-Technical Cooperation was held. The meeting was chaired by Mikhail Petukhov, deputy head of the Federal Service on the Military-Technical Cooperation of the Russian Federation, and Spas Panchev, deputy Minister of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria. 
 
During the negotiations the parties came to an agreement to hasten the settlement of the problems concerning the licensing of special-purpose manufactures. 
 
The parties consented for the completion of the inventory procedure of licenses obtained earlier by Bulgaria from the Soviet Union for production of arms and military hardware. In particular, it is planned to examine more than 600 different licensing agreements, including those for the production of small and light arms among them the Kalashnikov assault riffles, the Makarov pistols, grenade launchers and other weapons. 
 
The Bulgarian side is expected to pass to Russia in the third quarter of 2006 lists of licensing agreements that Bulgaria is interested to prolong, as well as the list of contracts and arrangements that are to be terminated after the signing of corresponding intergovernmental agreement. 
 
By the end of 2006 the working group is to elaborate the mutually beneficial arrangements for cooperation in licensing. 
 
On the experts level the parties also discussed the draft of an intergovernmental agreement on the reciprocal protection of intellectual property rights in the sphere of military-technical cooperation. 
 
The Rosoboronexport management appreciated with satisfaction the balance of work of the joint Russian-Bulgarian group. 
 
According to certain data the annual loss of the Russian Federation caused by the unpatented weapons and military equipment sales amounts up to US$5