KOMSOMOLSK-ON-AMUR, Russia - Engineers based in a remote city in far eastern Russia are racing to complete a new jet that is being billed as the great hope for the country's civil aviation industry.

The "Superjet" which is months behind schedule is currently only an empty fuselage with no wings in a busy hangar some 8,000 kilometers  east of Moscow. But executives say it will be in the air by the end of the year.

During a recent visit - "to show that the plane exists," one company official joked - a group of journalists were taken around the factory of state-run constructor Sukhoi in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

The project to build a short-haul carrier has strong backing from the Russian government and analysts say it could finally allow Russia to compete seriously on the Western market for passenger jets.

"It's the first Russian civil aviation project with serious foreign support," said Gairat Salimov, an analyst with Moscow-based investment bank Troika Dialog.

"If it develops a credible worldwide servicing network it could compete" with the current leading models of regional jets from Brazil and Canada, he said.

The plane will carry between 75 and 95 passengers and already has 71 orders, almost half of which came from Russia's state-controlled carrier Aeroflot, company officials said.

Italian regional carrier ItAli put in an order for 10 planes in June.

But larger Western airlines are likely to hold off on any possible orders until the plane has been tested, experts said.

"In this market no-one wants to buy a product first. They want to wait until it has been tested," said Salimov. "But if the plane works well it will open the road for new Russian planes. It will build credibility for future projects."

Russia has set a lot of hopes on the success of the project - the first new passenger jet to be designed in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the eyes of Russian officials, the "Superjet" project is a symbol for the growing economic power of the country and the ambition to diversify the economy away from a reliance on oil and gas exports towards manufacturing and hi-tech.

"For Russia, this is not just about building a plane and a motor," said Jean-Paul Ebanga, director of Powerjet, a French-Russian joint venture that is building the engines for the Superjet.

"If all goes well, in 10 or 20 years the landscape of the aerospace industry will be quite different, thanks to what we're doing here," Ebanga said.

Making up for its lack of experience in civil aviation, Sukhoi - better known as a producer of fighter jets - has built up partnerships with foreign firms, including US jetmaker Boeing, Italy's Alenia and France's Snecma.

Sukhoi is aiming to break into the regional jet market, which is booming because of the global proliferation of short-haul carriers and is currently dominated by Brazil's Embraer and Canada's Bombardier.

The company has announced plans to sell 800 planes by 2024, with 300 going to Russia and 500 to Western airlines for a price tag estimated at around $25 million (18 million euros) each.

Executives said the price was lower than that of competitors because Sukhoi had all the raw materials necessary for construction within easy reach in resource-rich Siberia.

In any case, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a Soviet planned city built by the Communist youth league in the 1930s, is already confident of success. A large banner displayed in the city reads: "Our planes are the pride of Russia." 

By Amelie Herenstein

Agence France Presse