LUANDA, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Angola and Russia signed here on Friday a contract for the building, launching and operating an Angolan telecom satellite AngoSat.

    The signing of the 327 million U.S. dollars worth contract is widely regarded as a big success of visiting Russian President Dimitri Medvedev who arrived here on Friday for an official visit.

    According to Angola's official ANGOP news agency, it will take 39 months to finish the production of AngoSat and the Russian government will provide Angola all necessary technical means, training of Angolans in space technology for satellite management.

    Having a designed lifespan of 15 years, AngoSat will serve to support Angola's national infrastructures of telecommunications and terrestrial digital television all over the country.

    It will also enable the coverage in Africa, Europe, in C band, and Southern Africa region in particular, in Ku band.

    The agreement was signed by Aristides Safeca, Angola's deputy minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, and Vassili Ivanov, acting chairperson of the Russian company Rosoboronexport.