India and Russia will sign the Admiral Gorshkov contract in January 2004, a Russian official said on Tuesday.
"The sides have finalised the contract..." ITAR-TASS news agency quoted the official of the Russian Committee for Military Technical Cooperation as saying.
The $1.8 billion contract pertains to retrofitting the Kiev class aircraft carrier and MiG-29K carrier-based jets.
"The retrofitting and up-gradation of Admiral Gorshkov is valued at around $700 million and the remaining amount of over 1$ billion is for the planes," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"Earlier, the Indian side had asked to fit Admiral Gorshkov with the modernised Kashtan air defence system, but it is yet to pass trials and will be fitted on the aircraft carrier later," he added.
According to earlier reports along with Kashtan India was also considering the deployment of French Astre or Israeli Barak air defence missile system on Admiral Gorshkov.
"The proposal of Indian partners for fitting a third-party air defence system on the ship was to an extent a surprise for the Russian side, as it would inevitably create the problem of its operational compatibility with the battleship's combat systems," a Russian defence ministry official had said earlier this month.
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