South Korea will acquire 40 Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) F-35A aircraft and receive fighter jet production technologies from the company under a $7.04 billion deal with the U.S. government, the Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday.The new planes will replace the country’s old fleet of F-4 and F-5 jets and the F-35s will cost around $115.3 million per aircraft, the report said.
The U.S. and South Korean governments plan to finalize the deal within the month ahead of the planned F-35A deployments in 2018 for Seoul.
South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration said Lockheed will share production technologies to support the country’s approximately $8.2 billion project to develop its own fighter jets, according to Yonhap.
Flight control functions are among the 17 production technologies included in this agreement, the report said.
South Korea intends to develop 120 indigenous aircraft based on these shared technologies over the next decade,  Yonhap said.
