China last year increased the defence budget to USD 150.5 billion. China is the second largest spender on defence after the US.
Beijing: China today announced an 8.1 per cent increase of its defence expenditure for this year amounting to USD 175 billion, which is over three times higher than India’s defence budget.
China will raise its defence budget by 8.1 per cent in 2018, according to a budget report to be submitted to the national legislature today, which is up from last year’s seven per cent.
The 2018 defence budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan (USD 175 billion), state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the official documents submitted to the National People’s Congress (NPC).
China last year increased the defence budget to USD 150.5 billion. China is the second largest spender on defence after the US. The defence budget of the US which is the highest in the world amounted to USD 602.8 billion.
Its military spending per capita is also lower than other major countries, Zhang said.
“A large part of the growth of the defence budget is to make up for the low military spending in the past and is mainly used to upgrade equipment and improve the welfare of servicemen and women and the living and training conditions of grassroots troops,” he said. (Reuters)
You must be logged in to post a comment.