Hard up Thailand delays US fighter plane purchase

. Thailand is asking the United States to accept a three-year delay in payment for eight fighter jets it is buying -- because it has run out of money.

It's already paid nearly half the four-hundred-million dollar cost of the planes, which are due for delivery in 1999.

But the remaining payments have, in effect,doubled because the Thai currency, the baht, has lost more than forty per cent of its value against the dollar since July.

The Air Force commander-in-chief, Thananit Niamchansaid delaying the purchase was the only option, A BBC correspondent in Bangkok says like many of their partners in South-East Asia, Thai defence officials have been on a spending spree in recent years, and are now being forced to rethink strategy.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service