Russia will build a plant in Cuba to manufacture bullets for the Kalashnikov rifle, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
"The factory equipment has been lying in boxes for years, but now we're going to build the factory and put it into operation," said Konstantin Biryulin, a Russian government official, DPA reported.
The factory will produce cartridges for the old-style 0.30 calibre Kalashnikov automatic rifles, machine guns and sniper rifles, the newspaper Korrespondent said.
Russia in 2006 built a similar plant to manufacture Kalashnikov ammunitions in Venezuela.
During the Cold War Moscow was a major supplier of arms to Havana, whose soldiers sometimes used the weapons to fight in proxy wars.
Russian military support to Latin American nations came to a practical end in the early 1990s, but in recent years Moscow has stepped up efforts to sell arms to the region.