Special budget needed to boost munitions, drone production: Officials

Taipei, April 30 (CNA) Defense officials on Thursday cited the urgent need to expand munitions stockpiles and complete an indigenous drone production ecosystem as reasons for funding those local initiatives through the Cabinet's proposed special defense budget.

The Legislature is reviewing a NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.56 billion) special defense budget unveiled by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) in November last year.

The opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party, which together control the Legislature, have proposed their own versions that exclude initiatives involving the local defense industry and the option to acquire equipment through direct commercial sales.

The Ministry of National Defense (MND), meanwhile, has stressed that the NT$1.25 trillion budget was proposed after a comprehensive assessment of Taiwan's needs and should be treated as an indivisible whole.

Lt. Gen. Huang Wen-chi (黃文啟), head of the MND's Department of Strategic Planning, on Thursday gave a presentation on the proposal at a weekly Cabinet news conference, in which he broke down the spending plan into seven categories and outlined unclassified items.

On building indigenous production capacity, Huang noted that Taiwan's munitions stockpiles fall short of the MND's 120-day reserve threshold, which would be insufficient if the military were to respond to a blockade imposed by an enemy.

The situation is exacerbated by the heavy use of munitions in frequent drills, which has further strained stockpiles, he added.

To address the problem, the MND plans to double production capacity by establishing 14 new munitions production lines under the special defense budget, he said.

The ministry also plans a one-time procurement of various munitions, including those for 30mm chain guns, using the special budget, he said.

In addition, the government plans to invest in the local drone industry by placing "high-volume, long-term" orders to drive the creation of industry clusters and achieve its goal of establishing a secure "non-red" drone supply chain free of Chinese components, he said.

Together, the initiatives on munitions acquisition and drone production would provide Taiwan's military with sustained operational capability in the "highly likely" event that its sea lines of communication are cut off during a war, Huang said.

Asked whether the government would consider funding the drone production initiative through the general budget if the special defense budget fails to pass, Vice Defense Minister Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) said doing so would be neither time-efficient nor sufficient to stimulate industry growth.

"Through sustained orders and large-scale procurement, we hope to motivate manufacturers to invest in their own infrastructure," Hsu said.

Reiterating that the special budget was proposed after a comprehensive assessment conducted in consultation with the United States government, Hsu said opposition parties or other individuals seeking to remove certain items should state their reasons for doing so.