The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said 3 percent of GDP is the minimum budget it needs to maintain an effective defense force, but an official from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said that the government cannot afford a budget of this size.
"The defense budget this year accounts for 2.4 percent of GDP. If the government brings this up to 3 percent of GDP, it would spend an extra NT$70 billion," Vice Minister of the DGBAS Chen Ching-tsai (
Chen added that "the government estimates it will be unable to give the ministry a budget of 3 percent of GDP for the next five years, considering its constrained financial situation."
Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (
Lee said that South Korea's annual military budget accounts for 4.3 percent of GDP, while Singapore allocates its annual defense spending at 5.5 percent of GDP.
Lee said that even though Taiwan's GDP growth has averaged 2.1 percent over the past five years, the military's annual budget has declined, accounting for 2.8 percent of GDP in 2001 and 2.4 percent this year.
"Insufficient military budgets have affected the country's defense," Lee said.
To safeguard national security, the ministry will continue to ask the government for annual military budgets of between 3 percent and 3.5 percent of GDP, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) said China's military spending accounts for 2.8 percent of GDP, and that its military budget has been growing at a double-digit rate for over a decade.
Noting that China's military budget would be 20 times Taiwan's within 15 to 20 years, Ting asked Lee, "will the military be able to safeguard the country if the gap of military spending between Taiwan and China continued to grow?"
Lee said if the ministry efficiently implements the downsizing of military personnel, and if it can attain a budget that is a minimum of 3 percent of GDP, it will be able to counter the military threat from China in the coming years.
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