China increases Defence budget by 12.2 per cent

Beijing: China plans to raise its defence budget from USD 117.7 billion to about USD 132 billion in 2014, making a 12.2 per cent increase.

Last year, China had raised its defence budget by 10.7 per cent to 720.2 billion yuan (USD 117.7 billion).

It had also hiked its internal security budget which is few billion dollars over the defence budget.

Chinese defence analysts said Beijing which is modernising its forces, formulates its defence budget to relatively match US defence spending amounting to USD 700 billion.