International

Pakistan raises defence spending

ISLAMABAD JUNE 15. Pakistan's Finance Minister, Shaukat Aziz, today unveiled a deficit budget, which raises defence spending over the previous year's at a time of military crisis with India.

The 2002-3 budget allocates 146 billion rupees ($ 2.43 billion ) for military spending as against 131.6 billion rupees in the original 2001-02 spending plan and 151.7 billion rupees in the revised budget.

The revised defence spending figure reflected emergency outlays after the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan began and a military standoff with India, in which both sides have marshalled a million soldiers along their tense borders.

Overall spending is budgeted at 742 billion rupees in 2002- 03, 1.3 per cent less than budget estimates for 2001-02 and 4.1 per cent higher than the revised estimates for 2001-2002. The budget deficit, however, is expected to decline to 4.0 per cent of GDP in the coming fiscal beginning July 1, against seven per cent of GDP in the revised 2001-2002 budget.

Reuters

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