Defense Budget Grows 9 Percent
By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
The government set aside 26.7 trillion won for its defense budget next year, up 9 percent from the 24.5 trillion won for 2007, to finance projects to renovate the nation's military, the Planning and Budget Ministry said Thursday.
It allocated 9.9 trillion won for maintenance of the armed forces, up from 9.4 trillion, with total soldiers' pay rising to 505 billion won from 480 billion won.
It expects spending for weaponry such as new fighters, to rise to 8 trillion won from 7.7 trillion won, and expenditure for intelligence collection and other projects to strengthen defense capability rising to 7.8 trillion won from 6.7 trillion won.
The ministry plans to raise its defense budget to 34.5 trillion won in 2011 from 29.1 trillion won in 2009 and 31.7 trillion won in 2010. The defense budget will rise 9 percent on average until 2011.
It said it will raise spending for reunification and projects related to North Korea to one trillion won from 996 billion won in 2007.
The Budget for South-North Korea economic cooperation funds rose to 750 billion won from 500 billion this year, with most of the funds being spent to support the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the North.