Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to sign a defense-export deal with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc during his visit to Vietnam next week, VietDefense announces on its Facebook page, according to an Asia.Nikkei post.
Vietnamese Coast Guard is interested in acquiring six 1,500-ton patrol ships based upon the Kunigami class to be built for the Vietnam Coast Guard.
The Kunigami-class patrol vessel is a class of 1,000 ton-class PL type patrol vessels of the Japan Coast Guard (JCG). In the 2000s, the JCG was building 1,000-ton class PLs with a high speed planing hull, such as Aso and Hateruma classes. Although these ships were excellent in security missions, they were also unsuitable for rescue missions because of their poor low-speed stability and cruising capacity. Since the mass retirement of the Shiretoko class was planned in the 2010s, general-purpose ships as replacements were needed. For this purpose, construction of this class was started under the FY2009 supplement budget.