South Korea has approved a deal to acquire 40 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for about KRW7.3 trillion (USD7.1 billion).
The Defense Acquisition Program Executive Committee headed by Minister of National Defense Han Min-gu approved the signing of a letter of offer and acceptance at a meeting in Seoul on 24 September.
Deliveries to South Korea of the F-35A - the conventional take-off and landing variant - will start in 2018, according to a statement by Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, Program Executive Officer for the F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office.
"[South] Korea becomes the third Foreign Military Sales customer joining Israel, Japan, and our eight partner nations on the programme," Lt Gen Bogdan added. "This is a good day for the F-35 programme and we look forward to working with the Republic of Korea government in executing its F-35 programme."
The F-35A will fulfil the Republic of Korea Air Force's (RoKAF's) FX-III requirement, under which Seoul originally planned to buy 60 aircraft to replace 1970s-era McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom IIs. The original estimate quoted for 60 F-35As was USD10.8 billion, one reason why the RoKAF approved a reduced fleet of 40 aircraft.
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