Following Eurofighter’s promise to assemble 53 Eurofighters in Korea if the aircraft is selected as Korea’s next generation fighter, global aerospace company EADS said that it will “invest $2 billion and its technology in the KF-X to help Korea to become a fighter jet producer.”
If Eurofighter produces 53 out of 60 fighter jets in Korea and EADS invests $2 billion in the KF-X program, the industrial and economic impacts is expected to be monumental.
The Eurofighter program secures more than 100,000 jobs in 400 companies in Europe.
If the assembly of Eurofighter and the KF-X program are conducted at the same time, it will bring economic effect worth dozens of trillions of KRW and create 50,000 jobs in Korea.”
The development of the Korean Utility Helicopter, SURION, by KAI which secured technology from Eurocopter is a recent successful case of collaboration between Korea and EADS. The SURION raised Korea to the 11th helicopter manufacturer in the world.
The SURION brought technical effect worth about 14 trillion KRW and created more than 25,000 jobs in Korea.
In addition, Airbus, one of EADS subsidiaries, has chosen KAI as the supplier of main parts of Airbus aircraft from 1998.
If Korea chooses Eurofighter as its next generation fighter jet and EADS invests more than 2 trillion KRW in the KF-X program, it will bring bigger economic effect than the SURION and Korea will be the 5th country who produces Eurofighter, high-level fighter jet. It will also create strong political and military ties with Europe.
EADS’s suggestion of investment of $2 billion in the KF-X and joint development is expected to cause a shock wave in Korea which has only purchased complete products (fighter jets), depending on the ROK-U.S. alliance.
