Putin to attend engineering forum, meet with Yemeni president

Source : RIA Novosti, 30/06/2010

Moscow- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will on Wednesday attend an international engineering forum in the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow, where he will meet with world leaders and executives.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Siemens CEO Peter Loescher are expected to attend Engineering Technologies 2010.

The forum will run from June 30 to July 4. It will show the capabilities and prospects of the Russian machine-building industry.

Some 25 conferences and round tables involving over 1,500 delegates from Russian and foreign companies will be held.

Abdullah has good reason to attend the event: 90% of military hardware in the Yemeni armed forces was made in the former Soviet Union, and the country's air forcefleet consists of Soviet-made aircraft.

Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, a deputy director of Russia's Federal Service on Military and Technical Cooperation, told RIA Novosti in early June that contracts on the supplies of Russian armored vehicles, small arms and ammunition to Yemen are implemented as planned.

Many industrial and social facilities in southern Yemen were built with support from the Soviet Union.

Russia also delivers humanitarian aid to Yemen as the country is currently fighting al Qaeda militants and has to deal with Shiite rebels in the north and separatists in the south.

A recently agreed aid package includes tents, mobile power plants, blankets, canned food and sugar.

MOSCOW, June 30 (RIA Novosti)