The world's largest defense corporation, Lockheed Martin, yesterday denied a report that it will withdraw from a joint venture to maintain military aircraft here.
Lockheed Martin's Taiwan office said the company is considering the possibility but has not made a final decision.
It made the statement yesterday in response to a report in a Chinese-language newspaper that said it had decided to pull out of a military-aircraft repair and maintenance business because its local partners insisted it hold no more than a 40 percent stake in the joint venture.
A spokeswoman for the office said that Lockheed Martin had differed with its partners over what stake it should have.
"Lockheed Martin is still negotiating with local investors over the issue," the spokeswoman said, declining to go into details.
The government, led by the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, has decided to open up certain aspects of military services to the private sector, including aircraft maintenance.
This involves privatizing several of the air force's aircraft depots, starting next year.
Under the privatization plan, the Taichung-based second depot will be the first to be privatized, becoming a government-owned and contractor-operated (GOCO) company.
Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (
Lockheed Martin signed an agreement last year with four local companies to form a GOCO business. The four companies are: the state-run Aerospace Industry Development Corp (AIDC); Air Asia, China Airlines and Evergreen Aviation Technology Corp.
Under the agreement, a new company -- called Aviation Technology Services -- was established late last year to handle the GOCO business.
Lockheed Martin initially asked to hold 45 percent of the shares of the company, but later agreed to take a smaller share, 40 percent, after negotiations with other investors.
However, last month the legislature's Committee of National Defense agreed on a resolution limiting the Lockheed stake to 20 percent.
The resolution has now become a major obstacle to the venture and has elicited complaints from Lockheed Martin.
Local investors have continued negotiations with Lockheed but no agreement has been reached.
In yesterday's newspaper report, unidentified government officials blamed AIDC for the standoff, saying the company had taken on the role as leader of the local investors in the project.
An official with AIDC, who declined to be identified, said yesterday the accusations were unfair to AIDC since it was the legislature that demanded the 20 percent limit on Lockheed Martin's stake.
"We do not want Lockheed Martin to withdraw from the business. We need their investment," the official said.
Some, though not all, local investors are unhappy about the dominant role Lockheed Martin is seeking in the venture, sources said, so they sought help from lawmakers.
Defense committee lawmakers were unavailable for comment yesterday.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods