Taipei: Taiwan's indigenous Sky Bow missile program was compromised in March last year as a subcontractor imported parts of inferior quality from China.

The revelation about inferior quality Chinese parts was made by the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) on Wednesday who referred the case to prosecutors and filed a claim for compensation in March 2021, reported Taiwan News.

Mirror Media reported that silicon-controlled rectifiers, devices that control the current supply, had been sourced from China by the subcontractor and that they did not meet the quality standards required for the surface-to-air missiles.

In order to prevent such incidents from repeating, the NCSIST said it had set up a system to establish close relations with suppliers and to detect forged documents of origin, reported Taiwan News.

Because the case had been discovered at an early stage, it had not influenced the manufacturing process of the missiles, the NCSIST said in a statement.

The weapons manufacturer concluded by emphasizing it welcomed outside businesses to join the domestic defence industry, adding it was on target to fulfil its obligations.

Meanwhile, the US on Tuesday approved a USD 100 million sales of equipment and services to Taiwan to "sustain" and "improve" the Patriot missile defence system used by the self-governing island.

The development comes at a time when tensions between China and Taiwan are heightened. The relations between China and the US have also deteriorated in recent issues concerning human rights, coronavirus pandemic and trade.

Taiwan's current government has emphasized indigenous production of defence systems from submarines to missiles in order to counter the threat of attack from Beijing's communist regime.