TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — If Taiwan fails to meet the May 31 deadline to submit an initial down payment for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), the procurement case will be canceled and must be restarted, Lieutenant General Huang Wen-chi (黃文啓), director of the defense ministry’s Strategic Planning Department, said on Wednesday.
Huang said at a Legislative Yuan Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee meeting that the initial payment for the 82 HIMARS is approximately NT$800 million (US$25.4 million), CNA reported. He emphasized that the US explicitly stated that the stipulation for delaying the HIMARS payment was that it must be settled by May 31.
If the deadline is missed, the case will be canceled, and Taiwan will have to restart the entire procurement process, Huang said. The HIMARS case took about eight months of work, he said, adding that a new deal would take longer and face higher price adjustments, per CNA.
Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said the Legislative Yuan’s prior authorization for the defense ministry to sign a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) with the US is not standard practice, according to CNA. Historically, the ministry would compile and submit a budget once the US expressed willingness to sell to Taiwan.
The LOA would be signed after the Legislative Yuan reviewed and approved the funds.
Koo explained that when the LOAs for four major systems, including HIMARS, M109A7 Self-Propelled Howitzers, TOW 2B missiles, and Javelin missiles, were received, the special defense bill and budget had not yet passed, per CNA. If the budget continues to face delays, Taiwan risks failing to make the initial down payment on time, Koo said.
