BEIJING, March 4 (UPI) -- China's defense budget for 2008 will be up 17.6 percent from last year to more than $58 billion, a parliamentary spokesman announced Tuesday.
Jiang Enzhu, spokesman for the National People's Congress, whose session opens Wednesday, told reporters in Beijing the budget represents an increase of nearly $8.8 billion from last year's actual military spending, Xinhua reported.
Jiang the increase is needed to pay higher benefits to military personnel, offset higher oil prices and upgrade equipment "moderately" to enhance the troops' combat capability based on information technologies.
He said more money will be spent on education and training in army, the report said.
He said China's defense expenditure growth in recent years is far below the country's increase of fiscal revenues.
He said China's military expenditure last year was 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product, compared with 4.6 percent in the United States, 3 percent in Britain, 2 percent in France, 2.63 percent in Russia and 2.5 percent in India.
