NOVO-OGARYOVO, August 25 (Itar-Tass) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the Federal Space Agency and the Federal Property Agency to speed up reorganization of the aerospace sector at the Novo-Ogaryovo conference on Tuesday.

“The Federal Space Agency is drastically reforming the aerospace sector, but the reform is too slow. I would like to know why that is so,” Putin said.

“I order the Federal Property Agency and the Federal Space Agency to ensure the absolute implementation of earlier decisions. The Military Industrial Commission will strictly control the formation of integrated aerospace entities,” he said.

“I repeat that we will carry on the aerospace industry reform,” Putin said.

“Only four integrated entities have been formed and started to function – the Khrunichev Aerospace Center, the Energia Aerospace Corporation, the CSKB-Progress Rocket Center and the Pilyugin Automatics and Instrument Making Center. The formation of other entities is slow,” the premier said.

The integrated entities will later unite into several holdings with a considerable degree of economic freedom, Putin said. “The holdings will creditably represent Russia on the world market,” he noted.

The Russian aerospace sector is made up of 100 research and production entities. Over half of them are federal unitary and state-owned organizations. Twenty-two percent are joint stock companies. There are 18 research centers in the industry.

It is planned to have seven large integrated entities in the aerospace sector by 2013, a source at the government press office said earlier.

The Center for Operation of Land-Based Infrastructure will provide maintenance of spaceports and develop their infrastructure.

The integrated entities will be enlarged by 2016. There will be a large research center, a corporation producing automatic satellites of various purposes and so on.

“After 2016, the aerospace industry will be made up of six large self-sufficient corporations competitive on the world market,” the source said.