Putin wants Russian satnav system in new cars from 2012

All new Russian cars could come equipped with Moscow’s GLONASS satellite navigation system, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, with a tax to be levied on the rival GPS system.

"I think that from 2012 all new cars could be sold with the system built in so as to raise the level of road security," Russian news agencies quoted Putin as saying.

Putin said that GLONASS, which was invented by the military in the 1980s to compete with the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and will in the future face competition from Europe’s Galileo, was being successfully developed.

Six new satellites are to be launched this year, Putin said, which will add to the network criss-crossing the planet and provide global navigation coverage.

Putin said in April that Russia is to spend 1.7 billion rubles (42.5 million euros, 58 million dollars) developing the system next year compared to 2.0 billion rubles this year and 2.5 billion rubles in 2009.

Deputy Prime Minister Serei Ivanov meanwhile announced that he would seek a 25 percent import tax on GPS systems from 2011, the Ria Novosti news agency reported.