SEOUL, April 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea plans to send a fleet of its newly developed supersonic trainer jets to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the middle of July to join in a flying test in the run-up to the Middle East nation's contract for the procurement of 40 to 60 next-generation trainer jets, defense officials said Wednesday.

"The UAE authorities asked for South Korea's participation in the test," an official at Defense Acquisition Program Administration said. "We plan to send two or three T-50 trainer jets there around mid-July."
Seoul has aggressively pushed to market the T-50, developed in 2005. Each jet is priced around US$20 million.

The UAE recently chose the South Korean-made aircraft as one of three candidates for its project to acquire brand-new trainer jets, along with those made by Britain and Italy.

The successful bidder is expected to be announced in October.