Taiwan To Buy Jet Engines From Honeywell For Indigenous Jet Trainer Program

Taiwanese lawmakers visiting the US last week reached a deal to buy jet engines from Honeywell.

The Legislative Yuan Foreign and National Defense Committee’s bipartisan delegation visited International Turbine Engine Co (ITEC) to discuss the purchase of jet engines for Taiwan’s indigenous high-performance trainer jet program.

ITEC, a joint venture between the US-based Honeywell Aerospace and Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), created to facilitate technology transfers to and procurement by Taiwan.

“The lawmakers (Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)) lobbied Honeywell into scrapping a planned price hike on the engines,” Taipei Times reported quoting an unnamed source as saying Tuesday.

Lawmakers from both parties told the US contractors that no additional budget for the engines’ procurement is available under Taiwan’s parliamentary rules, and any price hike would delay the purchase, the source said.

After days of negotiations, Honeywell agreed to keep the prices unchanged and a contract is expected to be signed in October, the source said.