Taiwan News
Date: 2016-05-15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
Even though the funds allocated to national defense from the government’s 
annual budget represented less than 3 percent of Taiwan’s gross domestic product (GDP), Taiwan has seen its defense budget grow over the past three years, Ministry of National Defense (MND) spokesman Maj. Gen. Luo Shou-he said on Sunday.
Luo made the statement in response to an annual report recently released on China’s military and security developments by the U.S. Department of Defense, which stated that Taiwan’s defense spending has dropped to 2 percent of GDP, while China’s military spending has risen to 14 times that of Taiwan’s.
Media reports said that Taiwan’s national defense budget has grown slightly in recent years, with its defense budget for the fiscal year of 2016 accounting for only 2.3 percent-2.4 percent of GDP. [FULL STORY]
