'Pakistan's defence spending lowest in region despite growing security threats'

Pakistan's defence budget is the lowest in the region, the defence committee was informed by the Ministry of Defence.

Despite its location in the red zone in terms of growing threats to its security, Pakistan's defence allocation, 5.7 billion dollars, is the lowest as compared to rising defence budget of India 37.256 billion dollars, China 115 billion dollars and Turkey 19.1 billion dollars.

According to Dawn News, the revelation was made by Additional Secretary Ministry of defence Air Vice Marshal Arshad Quddus during the committee meeting, which was specially called for the defence budget briefing.

He disclosed that all defence and defence production organisations get their funds from defence budget allocated by the federal government and approved by the Parliament.

He added that the Pakistan Army gets 48 percent of the whole defence budget while 20 percent goes to Pakistan Air force and Navy gets only 10 percent.

When asked about budget of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the additional secretary said the country's premier intelligence agency also gets its money from the budget allocated for defence, the report added.