A major general of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)
said Saturday that despite a steady rise over the past few years,
the national defense expenditures still fall short of the actual
needs of military reforms and modernization.
"Compared with other major countries in the world, the military
expenditures of our country are still at a fairly low level and
still can't fully meet the actual needs of pushing forward military
reforms and building an IT-supported army," said Major General Ding
Jiye, head of the financial division of the PLA's General Logistics
Department, in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
Premier Wen Jiabao, in his annual government work report to the
National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, Saturday
morning, proposed lawmakers approve a national defense budget of
244.66 billion yuan (US$29.58 billion) for 2005, a 12.6 percent
increase over the previous year.
"With the sustained, rapid and sound growth of the national
economy and the advancement of the military modernization drive,
the national defense spending has been on the rise for several
years, showing the Party's and government's care for national
defense and army building," said Ding.
The money to be added to this year's defense budget will mainly
be used for three purposes, namely to raise the living standards of
the military servicemen, to provide financial guarantee for
military reforms and restructuring, including a program to cut the
PLA troops by 200,000 before the end of the year, and to
"appropriately increase" the spending on the military's armament
purchase and development, said Ding.
"As the conflict between the supply and demand of national
defense spending still remains quite outstanding, we must firmly
implement the principle of building the military in a frugal and
thrifty manner, and try our best to raise the efficiency in the use
of the funds," Ding added.
(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2005)