Russia to take oil in exchange for arms

by Andy on February 10, 2005

Rosoboronexport, one of Russia’s state owned arms companies, is considering accepting oil and gas rights in payment for arms deals.

It makes good business sense for Rosoboronexport as the transfer of mineral rights is harder to default on than cash payments.  But it’s got to be bad business for the countries buying the arms.  Their mineral resources are often a key driver of their economies, and revenues from mineral sales make up a huge part of their state budgets.  If they just hand them to a Russian company, although there will be some benefit to their economies in terms of jobs, every single cent of profit to be made from those mineral resources will leave the country destined for Russian bank accounts.


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Robert Mayer February 11, 2005 at 1:00 am

They do something like this in Chile. Basically, they have the huge copper company (since that is their huge metal export) that is state owned, and all of the revenue goes to the military. Consequently, Chile doesn’t have to deal with the instability that other democratic countries down there face.

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