{"id":2644375,"date":"2025-09-17T01:58:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/2644375\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T01:58:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:58:16","slug":"exclusive-japan-britain-and-italy-plan-to-place-advanced-jet-fighter-project-hq-in-uk-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/2644375\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive-Japan, Britain and Italy plan to place advanced jet fighter project HQ in UK -sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u30a2\u30a4\u30c6\u30e0 1 \u306e 2 FILE PHOTO: A concept model of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP)&#8217;s fighter jet is displayed at the DSEI Japan defense show at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, east of Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2023. REUTERS\/Kim Kyung-Hoon\/File Photo<\/p>\n<p>[1\/2]FILE PHOTO: A concept model of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP)&#8217;s fighter jet is displayed at the DSEI Japan defense show at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, east of Tokyo, Japan March 15, 2023. REUTERS\/Kim Kyung-Hoon\/File Photo<\/p>\n<p>TOKYO (Reuters) &#8211; Japan, Britain and Italy plan to choose Britain as the headquarters for their next-generation fighter program, four sources in Japan said, putting London at the forefront of a partnership that could expand to include other nations.<\/p>\n<p>The three countries established the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) in December after Britain and Japan agreed to merge their fighter efforts in a ground-breaking collaboration that aims to deploy an advanced aircraft by the middle of the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>Japan and Britain will dominate design and manufacturing on the project, with London&#8217;s deeper and more recent experience in jet fighter development likely to give it a leading role in organising the program, said three of the sources, who have knowledge of internal discussions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The headquarters will be in Britain, but for the sake of balance, someone from Japan could head it,&#8221; said one of the sources, all of whom asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Discussion about the headquarters is ongoing and we are unable to comment on the location,&#8221; Japan&#8217;s defence procurement agency said in an email. A development framework for the fighter would be established in the next fiscal year, it added.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No final decisions have been made on the locations and we will not comment on speculation,&#8221; a spokesperson at Britain&#8217;s defence ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Officials at the Italian defence ministry were unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Reuters in March reported that Italy was set to pay for about a fifth of the overall development cost, which the country&#8217;s government dismissed as &#8220;speculative&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>OTHER COUNTRIES<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, the head of Italian defence and aerospace group Leonardo said Saudi Arabia would not be a core partner in the project, after the Financial Times last month said it was pushing to join.<\/p>\n<p>GCAP could welcome the country in a more limited role because it would bring money and a lucrative market to a project expected to cost tens of billions of dollars, the three sources said.<\/p>\n<p>One of its neighbours in the Middle East, The United Arab Emirates, has also shown interest, they added.<\/p>\n<p>There had been conversations on possibilities with Saudi Arabia, but no decision beyond that, Richard Berthon, director of Future Combat Air at Britain&#8217;s Ministry of Defence, said at London&#8217;s DSEI arms show last week.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was made clear in London that it could possibly come in at a later date,&#8221; an Italian defence ministry source said, declining to be identified because they are not authorised to speak to the media.<\/p>\n<p>Britain&#8217;s lead company in GCAP is BAE Systems PLC, with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries representing Japan.<\/p>\n<p>European missile maker MBDA will also join the project, along with avionics manufacturer Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Britain&#8217;s Rolls-Royce PLC, Japan&#8217;s IHI Corp and Italy&#8217;s Avio Aero will work on the engine.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"SignOff\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__extra_small__8Buss body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__extra_small_body__Bfz20 sign-off-module__text__LQAMP\">Reporting by Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo; additional reporting by Paul Sandle and Angelo Amante. Editing by Gerry Doyle<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Body\" dir=\"ltr\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__element__5eCce article-body-module__trust-badge__5mS3f\">\u79c1\u305f\u3061\u306e\u884c\u52d5\u898f\u7bc4\uff1a\u30c8\u30e0\u30bd\u30f3\u30fb\u30ed\u30a4\u30bf\u30fc\u300c\u4fe1\u983c\u306e\u539f\u5247\u300d, opens new tab<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u30a2\u30a4\u30c6\u30e0 1 \u306e 2 FILE PHOTO: A concept model of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP)&#8217;s fighter jet is displa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2644376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784996],"tags":[21347,762709,762710,765467,14869,762715,765890,765891,73796,763076,285050,762762,762734,762884,62869,6804,133797,79981,762688,238274,762689,762679,12477],"class_list":{"0":"post-2644375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-war","9":"tag-aer","10":"tag-aero","11":"tag-aero1","12":"tag-asia","13":"tag-cmpny","14":"tag-cong","15":"tag-cong08","16":"tag-def","17":"tag-defbuy","18":"tag-dip","19":"tag-erep","20":"tag-europ","21":"tag-exclsv","22":"tag-gb","23":"tag-it","24":"tag-italy","25":"tag-jp","26":"tag-news1","27":"tag-pol","28":"tag-secur","29":"tag-topnws","30":"tag-12477"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/wakoka.com\/@news\/115217164371766811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2644375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2644375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2644376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2644375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2644375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wacoca.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2644375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}