A report from Finland’s National Audit Office (NAO) estimates the cost of purchasing new multi-role fighters for the Finnish Air Force at about €10bn. Industrial participation will increase the price by between five and twelve percent, it predicts, though most likely about ten percent.....
Korea’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration is re-evaluating its decision to double the non-fulfilment penalty for some offset categories. The administration had planned to raise penalties as high as 20 percent. An internal review is under way.....
A U.S. government report states that arms suppliers are increasingly using flexible options to finance weapons sales. The report, prepared for members and committees of Congress and based on unclassified data, mentions guarantees of countertrade, co-production, licensed production, and co-assembly elements in contracts to secure new orders.
The Hudson Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., has recommended in a briefing paper that Japan establish an effective FMS programme. The programme would be vital for building and extending Japan’s defence trade opportunities and help to prevent the type of failures that torpedoed Japan’s efforts to sell submarines to Australia and other attempts at foreign arms deals.
Grace Mugabe, President Mugabe’s wife, has sent a menagerie of safari animals to a Chinese wildlife park to pay for military uniforms for the Democratic Republic of Congo.