Lockheed sees increased Singapore interest in F-35 fighter

(REUTERS) - Singapore is showing increased interest in buying Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a top executive with the company said late on Thursday, a week after China unveiled a second stealth fighter called the J-31.

Lockheed is building three variants of the stealthy warplane for the United States (US) military and eight international partners - Britain, Australia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Turkey and the Netherlands, which are helping fund the plane's development.

Singapore became a security partner on the international fighter program in February 2003, along with Israel, which has already ordered an initial batch of the jets.

As security partners, Singapore and Israel both pledged to contribute about US$50 million (S$62 million) to the F-35 development effort, according to the globalsecurity.org website.