Pakistan's finance minister, Dr Hafeez Shaikh has announced that defense budget for for next fiscal year will be Rs495.215 billion (just under $6 billion). This marks an increase of 11.37% when compared to the defense budget of the last year.
Government maintains that due to high inflation of 14 %, increase of mere 11.37 % actually means that defense budget has actually been decreased by almost 2.63%.
Officials say that in current situation where Pakistan is facing duel threats, this defense budget is insificant to meet the requirement of security forces which needs to purchase and maintain the military hardware to meet both external and internal threats.
Total budget for fiscal 2011-12 has been projected an outlay of Rs 2.767 trillion ($32 billion), up 14.2% from the last years budget. This yeas government targets gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 4.2%.
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