T-50i advanced jet trainers at the headquarters of the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in Sacheon, about 440km southeast of Seoul yesterday. The T-50i to be exported to Indonesia, is based on the T-50 advanced jet trainer.
SEOUL: Boeing’s bid in the 8.3 trillion won ($7.4bn) tender to supply South Korea with 60 fighter aircraft was the only one below the price ceiling set by the country’s arms procurement agency, sources close to the process said yesterday.
A final decision was not expected until mid-September, the sources said, but the price submitted by the US company appears to be a significant step toward winning the contract.
Boeing is pitching the latest variant of its F-15 fighter, dubbed the F-15 Silent Eagle, against the Eurofighter consortium’s Typhoon and Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth jet.
South Korea’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA), which led the assessment of the fighters, said on Friday that at least one bid, which it did not identify, came within its overall budget.
The decision on one of the world’s most closely watched military tenders will be made by a committee chaired by South Korea’s defence minister after DAPA submits its final evaluation of the three fighters next month.
DAPA will score the bids on a fixed set of criteria, although Korean law prevents the government from signing a contract that exceeds the allotted budget.
“We will conduct a comprehensive evaluation on all three models,” DAPA spokesman Baek Youn-hyeong said. “But ... only parties with under-budget bids will be subject for final selection.”
A Seoul-based Boeing spokesman declined to comment, but on Sunday a spokesman in the United States said: “We believe our F-15 proposal can affordably meet the Republic of Korea’s requirements. We await their decision and stand ready to deliver on our commitments.”
DAPA said on Sunday that an unnamed bidder submitted a price that fell within budget “by arbitrarily changing conditions that were previously agreed upon” on the last of the 13 rounds of bidding Aug. 13-16. This bid will be considered as having “exceeded the budget,” it added.
The sources close to the process said this was the bid submitted by the Eurofighter consortium, in which EADS is an investor.
EADS maintains that the Eurofighter remains in the race.
“We are open for any constructive discussion with DAPA,” Christian Scherer, head of sales and international operations at EADS Cassidian, said in a statement yesterday.
The sources also said that the Lockheed Martin bid was over-budget, though the company responded on Sunday by saying that it had not received any official notification regarding the latest bidding results.
Lockheed said reports that it had been eliminated from the competition were not accurate, and it continued to work with the US government on its offer of the F-35 fighter for South Korea. It said the South Korean competition had multiple phases.
Reuters
