Monday’s Mainichi wrote that the Defense Ministry is aiming to buy U.S. defense equipment through contracts stretching six to ten years in an attempt to reduce procurement costs under the existing foreign military sales (FMS) arrangement. Up until now, the GOJ has purchased U.S. weapons systems under contracts lasting five or less years because of provisions in the Public Finance Law, which has reportedly pushed procurement costs up. The ministry now plans to invoke a separate statute to allow longer contracts when buying American defense hardware under the FMS program so that U.S. defense contractors can sell their products at lower prices. The planned procurement of F-35s next fiscal year will be the first such contract.