CHINA’S DEFENCE BUDGET IN 2015

CHINA DEFENCE BUDGET TO DOUBLE OVER 5 YEARS: REPORT

AFP

The Times of India, February 14, 2012

SINGAPORE: China's defence budget will double between 2011 and 2015 and outstrip the combined spending of all other key defence markets in the Asia-Pacific region, global research group IHS said on Tuesday.

China's defence budget stood at $119.8 billion last year and will rise to $238.2 billion in 2015, marking a combined annual growth rate of 18.75 percent during the period, the US-based IHS said in a forecast.

The 2015 figure exceeds the combined total of the next 12 biggest defence budgets in the region, forecast to hit $232.5 billion, and will be almost four times second-placer Japan's defence spending that year, it added.

"Beijing has been able to devote an increasingly large portion of its overall budget towards defence and has been steadily building up its military capabilities for more than two decades," said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist for IHS Global Insight.

"This will continue unless there is an economic catastrophe."

The growth in China's defence budget -- which averaged 12 percent annually from 2000-2009 -- will benefit from the projected surge in the gross domestic product of Asia's largest economy in the next three years.

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