Korea has edge past India to bag $920-million deal for exporting light combat aircraft to Malaysia. Korea Aerospace Industries’ (KAI’s) FA-50 and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL’s) LCA Tejas were in the last fray to clinch the Malaysian deal for 18 fighter jets.

KAI CEO Kang Gu-young and Datuk Muez bin Abd Aziz, secretary general of Malaysia’s defense ministry, signed the FA-50 aircraft deal in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, The Korean Times reported on Friday.

HAL officials were unavailable to know the reason for losing out the contract but its chairman CB Ananthakrishnan at the just-concluded Aero India 2023 had said that they have unofficially learnt that they have suffered a “setback” in their attempt to export LCA to Malaysia.

“We have not received anything in black and white... But we are hearing that the Koreans may get the order,” the HAL chief had stated at Bengaluru. Ananthakrishnan, however, was hopeful of taking forward interests Indonesia and Egypt have shown in the Tejas.

India had tried a hard bargain with Malaysia offering them a complete package including setting up an MRO facility for Russian Sukhoi-30s that its Air Force has in its fleet.

The Korea Times quoted an unnamed KAI official to state that FA-50s will be modified to have an aerial refuelling system and expanded payload capacity. The KIA officials believe that the first batch of the FA-50s will flyout for Malaysia from 2026. KIA’s Friday’s deal adds to its portfolio of exporting light combat aircraft to Poland, the Philippines and Indonesia.

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