MOROCCO: Pakistan expressed hopes to decrease its expensive military
expenditure in the next fiscal year to below the 16 percent it took of
the budget in the current 2011-2012 fiscal year, the army’s spokesman
said on Saturday.
The cash-strapped country allocated "around $5
billion to the army’s budget" in the current fiscal year, military
spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas spoke with the media on the
sidelines of a conference in the Moroccan city of Tangier.
"That’s the equivalent of 16 percent of the state’s budget," said Athar.
Asked
if the percentage figure would increase in the next fiscal year, Athar
said: "Hopefully not because for about five years, the military budget
remained at between 13 percent and 14 percent.
"It was
increased only this year because of the environment of security, and a
lot of things that were required by the paramilitary in particular.
"I don’t see the military expenditure taking in more than $5 billion (in the next fiscal year)," he added.
Pakistan government’s fiscal year runs from July 1 of the previous calendar year to end-June of the following year.
The
state increased by close to 12 percent the budget for the military in
2011-2012, in what analyst’s link to an annual inflation rate that
hovers around 13 percent.
Pakistan’s budget targets a budget
deficit of 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2011/12 and an
economic growth of 4.2 percent.
Funds allocated by the government to the Pakistani army still represent a "very small amount", he said Online
