{"id":51792,"date":"2026-04-19T13:07:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T12:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?p=51792"},"modified":"2026-04-19T13:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T12:07:52","slug":"australia-japan-sign-7-billion-warship-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/australia-japan-sign-7-billion-warship-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia, Japan Sign $7 Billion Warship Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Toowoomba arrives in preparation for Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, U.S. June 25, 2018. Picture taken June 25, 2018. U.S. Navy\/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Holly L. Herline\/Handout via REUTERS.<\/p>\n

Australia, Japan Sign $7 Billion Warship Deal<\/p>\n

SYDNEY, April 18 (Reuters)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Australia and Japan signed contracts on Saturday launching their landmark A$10 billion ($7 billion)<\/p>\n

deal\u00a0to supply Australia with warships<\/p>\n

, Tokyo\u2019s most consequential military sale since ending a military export ban in 2014.<\/p>\n

Defense Ministers Richard Marles and Shinjiro Koizumi signed a memorandum \u201creaffirming the Australian and Japanese governments\u2019 shared commitment to the successful delivery\u201d of the warships, Marles said in a statement.<\/p>\n

deal struck in August<\/p>\n

anchors Japan\u2019s push away from its postwar pacifism to forge security ties beyond its alliance with the U.S. to counter China.<\/p>\n

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries<\/p>\n

is to supply the Royal Australian Navy with three upgraded Mogami-class multi-role frigates built in Japan from 2029. Eight more frigates will be built in Australia.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s Defence Ministry posted on X that Koizumi and Marles welcomed the \u201cconclusion of contracts for General Purpose Frigates, and confirmed to further strengthen bilateral defense ties\u201d in the signing in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Contracts were signed for the first three frigates, to be built in Japan, before there is a \u201ctransition to an onshore build\u201d at the Henderson shipyard near Perth in Western Australia, Marles said.<\/p>\n

Australia plans to deploy the ships \u2013 designed to hunt submarines, strike surface ships and provide air defense \u2013 to defend critical maritime trade routes and its northern approaches in the Indian and Pacific\u00a0Oceans, where China\u2019s military footprint is expanding.<\/p>\n

($1 = 1.3955 Australian dollars)<\/p>\n

\n Source:<\/span>
\n gcaptain<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Toowoomba arrives in preparation for Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, U.S. Navy\/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Holly L. Herline\/Handout via REUTERS.
\nAustralia, Japan Sign $7 Billion Warship Deal
\nReuters
\nTotal Views: 0
\nApril 18, 2026
\nSYDNEY, April 18 (Reuters)\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Australia and Japan signed contracts on Saturday launching their landmark A$10 billion ($7 billion)
\ndeal\u00a0to supply Australia with warships
\n, Tokyo\u2019s most consequential military sale since ending a military export ban in 2014.
\nDefense Ministers Richard Marles and Shinjiro Koizumi signed a memorandum \u201creaffirming the Australian and Japanese governments\u2019 shared commitment to the successful delivery\u201d of the warships, Marles said in a statement.
\nThe
\ndeal struck in August
\nanchors Japan\u2019s push away from its postwar pacifism to forge security ties beyond its alliance with the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","c2c-post-author-ip":"2.217.156.155","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9007],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-maritime-security"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51794,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51792\/revisions\/51794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimehub.co.uk\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}