In 2020, China will continue to reduce its defense budget growth to 6.6 percent. According to TEH representative in Beijing, this was stated in the report on the implementation of the central and local budgets for 2019 and the draft budgets of various levels for 2020.
On Friday, May 22, the report was submitted to the 3rd session of the All-China National People’s Congress (NPC, the country’s parliament) of the 13th convocation. The document notes that this year the country’s defense spending will amount to about 1.27 trillion yuan (about 178 billion US dollars). According to the authors of the report, this year the growth rate of the country’s defense budget continues to be unambiguous for the fifth year in a row.
The report also says that in 2019, China’s total defense spending was only a quarter of the same figure in the United States, which leads the world in this area, and according to the per capita indicator, only one seventeenth.
For his part, the official representative of the third session of the 13th NPC convocation, Zhang Yesui, noted that for many years China’s defense spending has remained at about 1.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. This indicator is significantly lower than the global average (2.6%).
Zhang said earlier that China is demonstrating transparency in military spending and has no so-called “hidden” military spending. He noted that Chinese authorities report annually to the UN on their military spending since 2007.
“Where did the money come from and how was it used – all these issues were clarified in the report,” the deputy stated.
