Mitsubishi Heavy gives up on 1st Japan-made passenger jet project

About 1 trillion ($7.6 billion) had been pumped into the SpaceJet project

Careless! 50 billion yen of that was taxpayer money! Nikkei reports that Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry provided 50 billion yen to support the project.

A huge waste of taxpayer money to buy vanity for Japanese elites, so they can persuade their pals that Japan is somewhat relevant in the world.

suspended it in October 2020 after it was hit by repeated delays due to a lack of expertise and the coronavirus pandemic.

Oh, I understand it all now.

... due to a lack of expertise and the coronavirus pandemic.

I am so tired of those who absurdly use COVID as a justification.

Was there another party that forced it to do it? That would mean less reliance on US airplanes.

Nikkei reports that Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry provided 50 billion yen to support the project.

Mottainai. And the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry expects us to believe only one-twentieth of the costs were provided by the taxpayer? I find that as believable as the bill for the Olympics.

 less reliance on US airplanes.

Nope. Its biggest competitors would have been aircraft from Airbus and from Brazilian Embraer.  

(Blaming the US for your problems is so often a knee jerk reaction.)

It's been on life support for years. Changes in leadership, structure, and name have done nothing for it except waste money.

Finally put to rest.

Sounds about right, waste 50 billion ¥ and spend no money hiring experts to get the job done. It's almost as if true capitalism which calls for diversity actually works. Japans government and corporations act like a child who knows they're wrong but won't accept help from their bigger brother "the west"

There are easier ways to burn such amounts of money. And there are also a lot more which would have been more useful to spend for.

@Septim Dynasty

A huge waste of taxpayer money to buy vanity for Japanese elites, so they can persuade their pals that Japan is somewhat relevant in the world.

It wasn't a vanity project if it actually produced the jet. All of Japan's neighbors are pursuing indigenous airliners; China's C919 just entered service while Korea's KAI announced a mid-size airliner as a follow up project after the completion of MC-X military cargo lifter project within 8 years about a month ago.

Koreans were going to horn their skills on the MC-X military cargo lifter before recycling its wing and tail into a civilian airliner, although the UAE participation screwed up that plan due to UAE's demand that the MC-X lift 60% of C-17's payload at C-17's range, forcing the MC-X to grow much bigger than initially planned.

So 20 years from now, there would be Chinese and Korean airliners flying around Japan but no Japanese airliner.