Thailand considers postponing defense acquisitions incuding additional S26T submarines

The Chinese Type 039, in which the S26T submarine for Thailand was based. Photo c/o Naval News.

The Thai Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that it is considering the postponement of several military acquisition programs due to the economic impact of Covid-19. Thailand is the first country in the region to confirm the pandemic’s effect on their defense procurement programs.

The MoD and the Royal Thai Armed Forces are looking at the impact of these postponements, and on selecting critical projects that will be included in the plan.

According to Thai MoD spokesperson Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantravanich, they are looking at procurement plans within 2020, as well as those for 2021, as budget would be tightened and several big-ticket projects would be affected and will need to be postponed to a future date.

While the MoD has not mentioned specific projects, British defense media outlet IHS Jane’s mentioned that those included in the planned postponement are additional S26T diesel-electric submarines from China, and may also potentially include additional locally-built Krabi-class offshore patrol vessels and several air force-related projects.

Thailand has robust yearly defense acquisition programs for all branch services of the Royal Thai Armed Forces, as they unveiled several projects for the Royal Thai Army (RTA) and the Royal Thai Navy (RTN), and released a White Paper for the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF), just before the Covid-19 pandemic became a global issue.

[1] Jane’s Defence Weekly