Development of the Sukhoi Superjet 100 began in 2000. On 19 December 2002, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft and Boeing signed a medium-term Cooperation Agreement to work together on the design. Boeing consultants had already been advising Sukhoi on marketing, design, certification, manufacturing, program management and aftersales support for a year. On 10 October 2003, the technical board of the project selected the supplies of major subsystems. The project officially passed its third stage of development on 12 March 2004, meaning that Sukhoi could now start selling the Superjet 100 to customers. On 13 November 2004, the Superjet 100 passed the fourth stage of development, implying that the Superjet 100 was now ready for commencing of prototype production. In August 2005, a contract between the Russian goverment and Sukhoi was signed. Under the agreement, the Superjet 100 project would receive 7.9 billion rubles of research and development financing under the Federal Program titled Development of Civil Aviation in Russia in 2005-2009.
