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Taiwan seeks industrial cooperation in purchase of 66 F-16 fighters
Sep 12, 2006, 9:14 GMT
Taipei - Seeking to boost its defence production capability, Taiwan wants greater industrial cooperation in its planned purchase of 66 F-16 C/D warplanes, the Central News Agency (CNA) said on Tuesday.
Deputy Defence Minister Ko Cheng-heng made the request at the annual Taiwan-US arms sales conference in Denver on Monday, CNA said. The meeting ends on Tuesday.
Ko said the US must increase the quota of industrial cooperation programme (ICP) in its arms sales to Taiwan to boost Taiwan's defence production capability.
'Taiwan has high-tech personnel and industrial integration, so it needs ICP to upgrade its defence production capability,' CNA quoted him as saying.
Greater ICP can help remove the obstacles in Taiwan's parliament to passing the budget for arms purchase, he said.
Using the example of Taiwan's planned purchase of 66 F-16 C/Ds, worth about 4 billion dollars, Ko said the US should increase ICP to at least 35 per cent of the sale, or 1.6 billion dollars.
He said the request was fair because other countries, like South Korea, Singapore and Pakistan, have requested 80-100 per cent ICP in their purchase of F-16s.
Taiwan is one of the top buyers of US weapons. In 1992 Taiwan ordered 150 F-16 A/Bs for 6 billion dollars with a 10 per cent ICP.
ICP, also known as offset programme, means the exporting country must tranfer technology to - or carry out joint production with - the importing nation to help the latter develop its defence production capability.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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