BEIJING – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced Tuesday that the government lowered its defense budget growth rate to 7.5 percent this year.
Li made the announcement during the opening of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People here in Beijing.
The growth in defense budget for this year is 0.6 percentage point lower than the 8.1-percent defense expenditure hike the Chinese government announced last year.
China’s defense budget last year was set at USD175 billion.
In a press conference Monday, NPC spokesperson Zhang Yesui called the defense budget growth this year as “proper increase” to protect national security.
“From 2016, China’s defense budget has kept a single-digit growth, down from the double-digit growth in the [past] five years before 2016,” Zhang said.
He added that the growth in China’s budget expenditure is “not a threat to other countries”.
“China remains committed as it always to a path of peaceful development and we pursue a defensive national defense policy,” the NPC spokesperson said. (PNA)
