SACHEON, South Korea (Yonhap) -- Indonesia will provide South Korea with a new timetable for its payments for the joint KF-21 fighter project by late next month, the head of Seoul's state arms procurement agency has said, in a development expected to ease concerns over its unpaid share of the program's costs.
Eom Dong-hwan, minister of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), told reporters of the plan Tuesday, as Indonesia resumed payments for the project last November for the first time in nearly four years.
As a partner country, Indonesia has agreed to shoulder about 20 percent of the project's total cost of 8.8 trillion won (US$6.5 billion). But it had halted payments from January 2019 until its resumption last November, raising questions over its commitment to the advanced warplane development project launched in 2015.
The country is estimated to have over 800 billion won in unpaid amount for the project scheduled for initial completion by 2026.
"(Indonesia) has promised to notify South Korea of its payment plan for the remaining amount by late June," Eom said during a media event at the headquarters of Korea Aerospace Industries Ltd. (KAI), the country's sole aircraft maker, in Sacheon, 437 kilometers south of Seoul.
Eom acknowledged the financial burden Indonesia is likely to face considering the project's deadline, but noted that the country made a payment of around 40 billion won in late February.
"We plan to manage such issues so that it does not disrupt the KF-21's development," he said.
During Tuesday's event, reporters were given close looks at KAI's fighter jets, including a demonstration of a KF-21 prototype being equipped with mock air-to-air missiles.
A group of engineers swiftly fastened two dummy air-to-air missiles -- a beyond-visual-range Meteor and a short-range AIM-2000 -- on prototype No. 1 parked at a hangar just minutes away from the company's assembly lines.
Since the KF-21's maiden flight in July last year, South Korea has staged over 200 test flights with four prototypes and the aircraft has achieved supersonic speeds and has staged armament tests.
"Guided launches (for the missiles) are scheduled to take place in the second half of 2025," Cha Myung-su, a senior test pilot at KAI, told reporters.
The fifth KF-21 prototype will make its first flight next week and the sixth one by the end of next month, according to KAI officials.
DAPA plans to stage some 2,000 test flights in total with the six prototypes by 2026.
On the back of the steady progress, DAPA seeks to sign a mass production contract for the aircraft next year, with Eom vowing to swiftly complete a "provisional" combat suitability test for the aircraft as part of efforts to finalize the mass production plan.
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