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If all goes according to plan, Korea will ink a deal to purchase 40 F-35A fighter jets
from Washington later this year. They'll be going through the so-called Foreign
Military Sales process, which could save the government hundreds of millions of dollars.
Our Defense Ministry Correspondent Kim Hyun-bin has more.
Korea has announced plans to buy 40 F-35A fifth-generation fighter jets from Lockheed
Martin later this year. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration
said Monday that it will go through the U.S. government's Foreign Military Sales process
and complete negotiations with Washington over prices and conditions in the third quarter.
The FMS process gives a foreign country the ability to pay the amount specified set by
the U.S. government at the time of delivery, not when the contract is signed.
Korea's total budget for the fighter jet project is approximately 7-point-4 trillion won, or
roughly 6-point-8 billion U.S. dollars. A recent assessement by Lockheed Martin suggested
that the price for one F-35A could drop to 80 million dollars by 2019, when production
is in full swing. It said that could eventually mean lower prices
for international buyers, including Korea. The DAPA said it will monitor the development
of the F-35, which has not been tested on the battlefield yet,... and whether it fits
with all of Korea's military requirements. With an eye on North Korea, the DAPA also
approved a plan to purchase an unspecified number of RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial
surveillance vehicles through FMS. The high-altitude, long endurance unmanned
aerial vehicle can operate in all weather conditions and distinguish an object as small
as zero-point-three meters in size, while carrying 14-hundred kilograms of internal
payload. Experts say the state-of-the-art spy plane
fits well with South Korea's missile defense system called the Kill Chain, which is designed
to detect impending missile attacks and launch pre-emptive strikes.
Kim Hyun-bin, Arirang News.