The military will downsize its personnel from the current 380,000 to 300,000 by 2006 in what will be the greatest personnel-streamlining effort in recent decades, defense sources said yesterday.
The sources said this goal will be achieved by cutting an average of 20,000 troops a year, starting from next year.
The reduction will be greater than the Chingshih personnel-streamlining project that was completed last year.
The Chingshih project was completed over a period of five years, beginning in 1997, and had cut the military's personnel down to 380,000 from an initial total of 450,000.
The newly announced downsizing project will be called "the Chingchin Project."
The target number of 300,000 had recently been mentioned by Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) at a meeting of the defense committee of the legislature, but this is the first time that the time frame has been made public.
The projected 300,000-strong military is just the kind of slim-but-strong force that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) promised during his presidential campaign two years ago.
In his proposed defense policy, which was published during the presidential campaign period, Chen argued that the ideal number of military personnel would be 300,000.
The reductions will save the military a lot of money. Personnel costs currently account for more than 50 percent of the defense budget.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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