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Aviation History
1998
1998 - 2325.PDF
IPTN has been virtually paralysed by the Asian crisis and has delayed N250 certification Asia's economic crisis has forced a new reality on to its once-ambitious aerospace industry PAUL LEWIS/SEOUL AND SINGAPORE ASIA'S EMBATTLED aerospace industry will likely reflect on 1998 with utter dismay. Once-bold Asian aeronautical ambitions to be a global player have been confined to the scrapheap after a series of setbacks. The focus is now on a post mortem examination to deter mine if and what can be resurrected. The region's economic implosion has dealt a crippling blow to local aerospace manufacturers from Bandung to Beijing. The casualty list reads like a "who's who" guide to Asian aircraft plan ning, encompassing the Chinese AE31X and and MD-90 TrunkLiner, Indonesian N2 50 and N2130, Japanese YS-X and South Korean K100 programmes. While Asia's financial crash has served as the coup de grace for many of these developments, their failure to get off the ground can be traced to more basic flaws. For Ryozo Tsutsui, Kawasaki executive vi^e-president and one of Japan's most experienced aerospace executives,".. .it's a mat ter of market and viability of the business." This realisation prompted the Japanese Government to abandon finally the long-run ning YS-X project in July. This was not before the Ministry oflnternational Trade and Industry (MITI) had spent close to ¥6.4 billion ($44 mil lion) since 1994 on the 100-seater airliner study led by Japan Aircraft Development (JADC). Samsung Aerospace executive senior direc tor Bang Un Chung tries to offer a fuller expla nation for the region's failures to date. "You have to look at this realistically," he says. "A lack of marketing power, name value and core design and manufacturing technology has prevented us from being a major player and this is some thing which is common to all of Asia." South Korean efforts to overcome these hurdles by initially proposing a K1007AE100 Air Express partnership with China, and a sub sequent planned take-over of bankrupt Fokker, have all proved fruitless. With the country now in debt to the Inter-national Monetary Fund (IMF) to the tune of S60 billion, an earlier state promise to underwrite 50% of any future national project now appears remote at best. Seoul, having been jilted at the altar by would-be suitor Beijing, could be excused for having little sympathy for the recent demise of Aviation Industries of China's (AVIC) planned AE3 DC tie-up with Airbus Industrie. Long-run ning negotiations were dogged by disagree ment on workshare and technology transfer, but ultimately the project succumbed to doubts about its financial feasibility and a major shift in Chinese economic priorities. Fiscal austerity and a shake-up of state-run enterprise AVIC has also grounded the Boeing TrunkLiner programme. Plans to licence-build the twinjet in Shanghai have been curtailed from 40 aircraft to 20 and finally just three, mainly because of AVIC's inability to success fully market and sell the aircraft to home users. CASH-SQUEEZED IPTN An even tighter cash squeeze has thrown Indonesia's IPTN into a virtual state of paraly sis. "We are now having to face what we would like to do and what we really can do, because the Government is no longer in a position to give us any money as a result of their commitments to the IMF" explains company executive vice- president Ilham Habibie. The state-owned manufacturer has again • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 2 - 8 September 1998 85
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