Korean Submarine Handover Ceremony in Indonesia

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] A delivery ceremony for the 'Alugoro' submarine was held at the state-owned PAL Shipyard in Surabaya, Indonesia.

According to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) on the 17th, the event was attended by Kang Eun-ho, head of DAPA, Muhammad, Deputy Minister of Defense, Hadi, Commander of the Integrated Forces, and Yudo, Chief of Naval Staff, along with other senior local military officials.

The 1,400-ton class small submarine Alugoro is the last of three submarines initially ordered by the Indonesian Ministry of Defense in 2011, jointly contracted by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and PAL Shipyard.

It was assembled locally through technology transfer from DSME. Previously, the first and second submarines were constructed domestically in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and delivered to the Indonesian Navy. DSME has also secured a second contract for the construction of the fourth to sixth submarines, separate from the first project, but since Indonesia has not yet made the down payment, there has been no significant progress on the second project.

Meanwhile, DAPA stated in a prior press release that broad discussions on defense industry cooperation between the two countries took place with senior local officials, drawing attention to whether the Indonesian government's delay in payments related to the Korean Fighter eXperimental (KF-X) program was discussed. Indonesia is participating in the joint development by sharing approximately 20% of the total KF-X project cost, amounting to 1.7338 trillion won, paid in stages according to development phases. However, citing economic difficulties, Indonesia has failed to pay about 604.4 billion won out of the 831.6 billion won due as of February, raising concerns about potential setbacks in the project.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.