Russia exported military hardware worth more than $15 billion in 2016, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, has said.

The Russian premier said they made much from the export at an enlarged session of the United Russia faction in the national parliament.

“The state defense order has been actually 99% fulfilled and this has never happened before,” Medvedev told members of the ruling United Russia party, which he heads.

“The export deliveries of military hardware as part of military and technical cooperation have brought about $15 billion, which allows us to keep our positions on the world armaments market,” the premier said.

Russia is placed second on this market after the United States, Medvedev said.

“It is important for us to retain this market,” the premier said.

According to the premier, Russian defense enterprises have increased production by more than 10 per cent last year, Russia’s aircraft-making industry increased military production by almost 3.5 per cent while its civilian output grew by about 20 per cent,” the premier said.

“Russia is developing principally new models of aircraft, such as the MC-21, which will fly using the promising PD-14 engine. Quite recently, the plane was rolled out in Irkutsk,” Medvedev said, expressing the hope that the project would develop according to plan.

Domestic ship-building has also demonstrated fairly good results, the premier said.

“Defense output in this sphere grew by more than 2% while the civilian segment of ship-building increased by 11%,” Medvedev said.

Conditions should be created for export expansion of Russian industrial products to global markets, he went on.

“Our industry should be competitive; goods manufactured by our industry should enjoy demand on the domestic and on the international markets. We must create all the conditions for the so-called export expansion,” Medvedev said.

Defense industry companies should also meet such criteria, particularly on account of making dual-purpose products, the Prime Minister said.

The defense industry was often the source for technologies development in the non-defense sector, Medvedev said. “The situation has reversed at present all over the world – the non-defense sector and its advance areas are very often pushing defense technologies forward,” he added.

There is also a need to implement innovations in the industry, Medvedev said. This will “make possible to perform the quickest possible upgrade of branches currently lagging behind and create modern and high-technology jobs,” he added.