Russia's Sukhoi Civil Aircraft announced on Wednesday it had started developing cargo and business versions of its much touted Superjet-100 regional aircraft.

The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-range passenger aircraft developed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau in cooperation with major American and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace, and Honeywell.

"We have decided to develop a cargo version of the plane, but we still do no

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t have any specific orders from potential customers," the company's vice president Maxim Grishanin said, adding that the project could be implemented if the company had orders for at least 40 cargo aircraft.

He said the plane would have cargo capacity of 15 tons.

The official said a business version of a passenger plane would be available for private customers in the future.

"The plane may be outfitted to meet the demands of a particular customer, Russian or foreign," Grishanin said.

He also said Sukhoi was negotiating new contracts with two Russian air carriers on the delivery of 27 Superjet-100s, which may be concluded after the maiden flight of the plane scheduled for late April or early May.

At present, the company has secured 73 definite orders for Superjet-100s.

The company plans to manufacture at least 700 Superjet-100s, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China.

The list price of a 95-seat base model is $28 million, but the company is currently working on both smaller and larger capacity modifications.

The market for the Superjet 100 is estimated at around $100 billion for around 5,500 planes through to 2023.

MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti)