Japan Adopts Plan to Procure 105 F-35 Stealth Fighters from U.S.

December 18, 2018

Tokyo--The Japanese government, at a cabinet meeting Tuesday, adopted a plan to procure 105 F-35 stealth fighter jets from the United States to replace 99 outdated F-15 fighters.

The 105 state-of-the-art warplanes comprise 63 units of the F-35A type customized for air force use and 42 units of the F-35B type for Marine Corps use, which is capable of short takeoff and vertical landing.

Japan is now set to introduce a total of 147 F-35 aircraft, including 42 F-35A planes that the government in 2011 decided to acquire. Of the total, Japan plans to buy 45 units between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2023.

In a new medium-term defense program, meanwhile, the government set a five-year budget of some 17.17 trillion yen, or about 152 billion dollars, for the procurement of new defense equipment.

Japan has introduced such a defense procurement quota for the first time, amid growing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to buy more U.S. defense hardware.

Japan will also purchase long-range cruise missiles and two Aegis Ashore land-based missile interceptor systems from the United States. But any defense procurement exceeding the quota will be postponed.

Regarding the F-35 procurement, the government will purchase finished aircraft under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program in fiscal 2019 and later, ending the current scheme including assembly work by Japanese maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. <7011>.

The new scheme is expected to reduce the procurement costs of F-35A aircraft by about 3 billion yen per unit, according to Defense Ministry officials.

The new medium-term defense program is the first of the series to call for streamlining defense procurement under the FMS program through talks with the U.S. side, as Japan's defense spending is increasingly constrained by multiyear contracts to buy expensive equipment.

In the program, the government also said it will promptly start developing the successor model to F-2 fighter jets to be retired from around 2030, under its own initiative possibly with foreign cooperation. Jiji Press