Accompanied by Alexander Tarasov, general director of the Krasnogorsk Zverev Plant, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin toured production facilities and learned about the latest developments at the plant, and also met with its workers.

At the meeting, they discussed, in part, the distribution of government funds allocated for the technical re-equipment of the defence industry. Mr Rogozin emphasised in this regard that by 2020, 80% of equipment must be replaced with modern machine-tools and production lines. Replying to a question about measures of social support for the plant’s employees, Mr Rogozin spoke about the need to elaborate mortgage programmes and to introduce preferential loans and other incentives for the workers and engineers of the industry.

Mr Rogozin also visited an exhibition of optics industry products, put on by Sergei Maxin, general director of Optical Systems and Technology.

Participants in the conference held after the meeting discussed the development and production of optical mechanic and optical electronic (including thermal image) devices for ground troops and the future development of the optics industry.

The conference was attended by the members of the government’s Military-Industrial Commission, as well as representatives of the State Duma, federal executive bodies and defence industry organisations.

The conferences features talks by Alexander Postnikov-Streltsov, Commander of the Ground Forces, Andrei Terlikov, general director of the Urals Design Bureau of Transport Machine Building, Vladimir Ivanov, general director of the Central Research Institute for Precision Machine-Building, Alexei Alyoshin, first deputy director general of the Russian Technologies State Corporation,

Alexander Aseyev, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences and chairman of its Siberian Branch and Igor Karavayev, state secretary and deputy minister of industry and trade.