Defense Min. seeking 3.7 B. yen for Aegis Ashore

December 10, 2017

Tokyo- Japan's Defense Ministry has made budget requests totaling 3.7 billion yen to prepare for the planned introduction of the Aegis Ashore land-based missile defense equipment, it was learned Sunday.

The ministry hopes to secure nearly 3 billion yen under a planned fiscal 2017 supplementary budget in order to start related research before the current year ends next March.

Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters in the northeastern city of Sendai that the ministry has requested an additional 730 million yen in spending under the regular budget for fiscal 2018.

The additional portion will be used to set the basic design of the equipment and conduct land surveys at locations where the equipment is expected to be installed.

The government hopes to introduce by the end of fiscal 2023 two units of Aegis Ashore--one in Akita Prefecture in northeastern Japan and the other in Yamaguchi Prefecture in western Japan. The government is expected to adopt the plan to introduce Aegis Ashore at a cabinet meeting as early as Dec. 19 this year.

Aegis Ashore is expected to cost 80 billion yen per unit. Two units will be enough to cover the whole of Japan if they are mounted with the Standard Missile-3 Block 2A interceptor missiles, which Japan and the United States are jointly developing.

The government earlier planned to make a spending request related to Aegis Ashore under the fiscal 2018 budget. But it decided to include part of the costs in its request under the fiscal 2017 extra budget in view of increasing tensions over North Korea. Jiji Press