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With the economic and politic centers drifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the 21st century, it is important to develop Russia’s Far Eastern territories by improving the quality of living and stimulating the economy, Russia’s Defense Minister and Vice Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov stressed during his one-day working visit to Primorye on August 26.

“We should fit the spirit of the times,” he noted at the meeting at Zvezda plant, located in the town of Bolshoi Kamen near Vladivostok, stressing that the problems of developing the country’s Far East are closely related to the issues of the country’s defensive capacity.

The meeting, which was dedicated to problems and prospects for the shipbuilding industry in the Russian Far East, was also attended by Primorye’s Governor Sergei Darkin and Presidential Envoy in the Russian Far East Kamil Iskhakov, as well as representatives from the federal military and industrial committee and directors of the largest shipbuilding and defense establishment enterprises in the Russian Far East.

Currently, Ivanov noted, a strategy for reforming and stimulating the shipbuilding industry is being developed on a federal level. The plan aims to create a new and competitive shipbuilding industry in the country, with the production volume increased 1.5 times by 2010 and four-fold by the year 2030.

“This is a very important document, and before passing it we have to consider opinions from territories’ governors and heads of the enterprises,” Ivanov said.

According to Ivanov, the federal government annually increases the volumes of the state defense order, which amounted this year to 237 billion rubles ($8.9 billion) and will equal 302 billion rubles ($11.3 billion) in 2007.

The defense order for Primorye’s shipbuilding enterprises will be increased by one billion rubles ($37.4 million), Ivanov revealed. The order will include construction of 12 helicopters Ka-50, or "Black Shark", through the year 2015. These single-seat attack aircraft are for special forces troops of Russia’s Ministry of Defense’s Chief Intelligent Service.

Yet, speaking about the problems in the industry, Ivanov noted that, “the shipbuilding enterprises should not count solely on the state defense orders but also develop civil shipbuilding.”

Another drawback of the shipbuilding industry in the Russian Far East, Ivanov said, is its isolation from the country’s biggest companies involved in shipbuilding cooperation. The strategy for developing the industry, he said, implies optimizing the network of shipbuilding companies in the Russian Far East, which might be combined into one single holding. This will enable local companies to effectively cooperate and use each other’s resources, including the intellectual potential of design offices, with most of them located in the country’s west.

Meanwhile, Ivanov announced, about 20 military universities will be closed down in Russia, including the Military Motoring College in Primorye’s town of Ussurisk. The step resulted from the decrease in the armed forces military, which diminished by 3.6 times over the past few years.

On August 26, Ivanov also had a working meeting with the Pacific Fleet Commandment in Vladivostok to discuss the fleet military’s combat training and providing social services for them. This year, about 5,000 apartments will be provided for the fleet militaries, Ivanov assured.

On Sunday, Sergei Ivanov and Presidential Envoy in the Russian Far East Kamil Iskhakov left for Alaska to have a working meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a press statement from the envoy’s office reported.

The officials attended a ceremony for the opening of a monument to ‘Lend-Lease’, the program of providing war supplies, including food, machinery and services by the U.S. during World War II to its Allies. A total of 42 Allied countries participated in the anti-Hitler coalition, and included the USSR, China, Belgium and the Netherlands. The payments to the recipients by the end of the war amounted to a total of $48 billion.