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Pakistan to increase defense spending by 17%

05 June 2010 20:58 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Pakistan will increase defense spending by 17 percent in the 2010-11 fiscal year, officials said Saturday, APA reports quoting, APA reports quoting news.xinhuanet.com website
The defense spending is set to rise to 442.2 billion rupees ( one U.S. dollar equals about 85 rupees) for the 2010-11 fiscal year beginning on July 1, compared with 378.13 billion rupees allocated in 2009-10.
"I think security is our topmost issue," Pakistan’s Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh told the parliament in his budget speech.
"We are facing a situation in which our armed forces, paramilitary forces and security forces are laying down their lives," he said, adding "they should know from this house that we all stand by them."
The Pakistani government unveiled the federal budget for fiscal year 2010-11 of more than 685 billion rupees deficit on Saturday.
Shaikh presented the budget before the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament.
Total volume of the budget is 3259 billion rupees, 10.7 percent more than the current year, while expected revenue collection has been estimated at 2574 billion rupees. So, the government would have to bear a budget deficit of 685 billion rupees.