Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko’s two-day routine visit to Iran was noteworthy for two events. The first is the long-awaited demonstration flight of the An-140 aircraft, the second is the signing of an international trade agreement. We have been waiting on the first for five years since Kyiv and Tehran agreed to produce this plane by joint effort. The second, no less long-anticipated, one will first of all promote a growth in trade turnover between the two countries.
As Interfax-Ukraine reported, the Ukrainian-Iranian plane made a successful maiden flight. The An-140’s test flight ceremony was attended by the head of the government of Ukraine and First Vice President of Iran, Hassan Ibrahim Habibi. The airplane, piloted by an Iranian flyer, made a few circles and simple turns over the grandstands and landed on the runway. The project to produce the Ukrainian-designed aircraft in Iran will be valid for at least twenty years. Incidentally, although the cost of the contract itself has never been revealed, Western experts estimate that only the organization of this kind of production will cost $4 billion. The overall requirements of the Middle East for this make until 2010 is an estimated 1000 planes. The commercial price of the plane’s base model on the local market is $8.5 million. After Ukraine’s Economy Minister Vasyl Rohovy and his Iranian counterpart signed a trade agreement on February 6, both parties decided to expand cooperation in the financial sphere. In particular, they agreed to open a office of an Iranian State Bank in Kyiv.
