The sum includes the cost of shipborne aircraft /the Mig-29K warplanes are supplied together with the carrier/, as well as the training of Indian specialists as the crewmen, Sergey Ivanov said.
Under the contract, expected to be signed during Sergey Ivanov's visit to New Delhi, the aircraft-carrier is planned to be shipped to India in 2008.
He recalled that Russia had supplied two modern frigates to India back in 2003 and before it shipped and overhauled diesel submarines.
Asked whether Russia was going to sign with India a nuclear submarine-supply contract, Sergey Ivanov said: "We have not signed any submarine contract." "To all appearances, Indian specialists had mistaken the supplied diesel submarines, for which we have a modernisation programme," he said.
"All these contracts are designed for decades, as well as the Admiral Gorshkov contract. Options for the future are also intended. We do not think of them in terms of money but merely have them in view," he said. To him, "It is a good deal of money, including work on the creation of the coastal infrastructure for the Indian Navy, in general, and the Admiral Gorshkov, in particular." Building of the infrastructure in not entered in the sum of the aircraft-carrier contract, he noted.
"The unfolding of the coastal infrastructure, further additional supplies of carrier aviation, updating and overhaul of machines - everything will be included in the option," Sergei Ivanov said.
