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Korea Democratic peoples Republic of,Korea Republic of : DEFENSE MINISTRY : budget affects procurement plans
Publish Date : 28-Jan-2015
Various military procurement projects, also to include one to acquire four aerial refueling tankers, would likely be either delayed or canceled citing budgetary constraints, as Seoul seeks to readjust its mid-term defense improvement plan, said a source on Sunday. The Defense Ministry is in the process of drafting the defense plan for 2016-2020, which will be finalized next month.
After a legal revision, the ministry assumed responsibility for drawing up the plan starting this year. Until last year, the plan was worked out by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
According to a military official, “Defense Minister Han Min-koo ordered his staff to consider financial constraints as the ministry draws up the defense plan. Thus, some procurement plans could be delayed or dropped even though the Joint Chiefs of Staff has already decided to push for them.”
During last year, the increase in budget amounted to only 4.8 percent, making some of the acquisition plans unrealistic. In consideration of budgetary limits, dozens of projects for the Army, Air Force and Navy may need to be readjusted and some of the projects for which no contract has been signed would likely be canceled.
A defense official (without revealing identity), said, “Budgetary pressure is quite considerable. Thus, there will be readjustments to defense projects and priorities. Obviously, uncertainty has increased over the prospect of some acquisition plans, though nothing has been confirmed as of yet.” To be delayed projects includes Seoul’s 1.4 trillion won ($1.2 billion) project to introduce four aerial refueling tankers between 2017 and 2019. Earlier, Seoul was planning to announce the winner for the project in December 2014, but now the winner would likely be selected in April or May.
