Regarding the media coverage of “Taiwan Is Once Again Treated Like an Idiot? F-16V Costs More Than F-35 for Taiwan”, the Air Force Command Headquarters has expressed today (31st) that the relevant media coverage contains unfair judgment, and has provided the following explanations:
1. The contract price of F-35 announced by Lockheed Martin is the priced used for selling to the United States Armed Forces and initial R&D country, which does not include the sum of money for participation in R&D expenditure; furthermore, items, quantity, and delivery period for each country is different, and a single unit of F-35 costs more than $USD 100 million for surrounding countries, hence the situation cannot be simplified and equally inferred.
2. The price for the Republic of China purchasing F-16V (BLK70) is the cheapest among countries that the USA agrees to sell to, and the fighter aircrafts procured by the headquarters use the same weapons, ammunition, and equipment as the active F-16V fighter aircrafts, which avoids ammunition being expired simultaneously, and economizes national defense budget.
3. According to the SAR, the R&D expenditure for the F-35 fighter aircrafts have reached to roughly $USD 53.1 billion, and non-initial member countries must pay for R&D expenditure, as well as approved by funding countries, in order to purchase. The current production schedule indicates that a window exists in 2044 for non-member countries to purchase. Taking into account the current enemy threats, the procurement of F-16V (BLK70) is able to instantly elevate air defensive combat capability, reduce training time course for personnel, reduce military investment and logistics maintenance cost, as well as achieve industrial cooperation, which comprehensively elevates the development of the national defence industry.
4. The headquarters hereby expresses regret regarding the media coverage of simplifying such inference from different standpoint, and requests citizens to continue to support the development of army establishment, in order to elevate the overall combat capability of the Air Force.