Japan's Expenses for US Aegis Ashore Systems Deployment to Grow by 30% - Reports

TOKYO (Sputnik) - The Japanese Defense Ministry plans to increase expenditures for deployment of a US land-based missile defense systems, Aegis Ashore by 20-30 percent up to 250 billion yen ($2.2 billion), The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported citing military sources on Sunday.

According to The Mainichi Shimbun, the decision to increase costs was taken with the aim of introducing the new US radar, which has much more detection and tracking capability compared to the old Aegis radar.

The Defense Ministry intends to include these costs in the budget for the next financial year, which will start on April 1, 2019.

In December 2017, the Japanese government approved the deployment of Aegis Ashore in the northwest and in the southwest of the country. The two components are expected to cover the country's entire territory and will each cost Japan about $890 million. Tokyo expects that they will enter service before 2023.

Japan is currently protected by four destroyers equipped with US Aegis missile defense systems carrying SM-3 intercept missiles as well as surface-to-air modernized Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) ballistic missile interceptors.

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Sea-based Aegis systems are capable of intercepting a ballistic missile at altitudes of over 310 miles. Land-based Aegis systems have similar capabilities. Japan's missile defense is planned to be strengthened by equipping the Aegis systems with a new type of SM3 Block2A missile, the range of which is almost three times higher than those of the SM3.