Basically, they are trying to make a fixed price fly-away offer to these nations in the $58-63 million range if they order right now. (Note: total acquisition cost is generally around double fly-away cost)

The JSF office is concerned, with no small justification, that in competition against aircraft in service (or a modification of an aircraft in service in the case of the SAAB Gripen NG) which can guarantee prices, that they will lose too many sales, and so lose economies of scale, which leads to procurement costs, which leads to unit cost increases, and so on, and so on, and so on.