BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday announced what could be its lowest military budget increase in six years in the wake of rising economic headwinds and last year's announcement of a slimmer military.
Fu Ying, spokesperson for the National People's Congress (NPC) annual session, said military spending of the world's most populous country is budgeted to grow by 7 to 8 percent in 2016.
"China's military budget will continue to grow this year but the margin will be lower than last year," Fu told a press conference on Friday.
The exact figure will be released in a budget report presented to the session on Saturday, Fu said.
China's defense budget rose by 10.1 percent in 2015.
The fresh raise could put the 2016 defense budget at around 950 billion yuan (about 146 billion U.S. dollars), up from last year's 886.9 billion yuan.
It would also make the world's second largest economy the second largest defense spender, both next to the United States which, in the exact words of U.S. President Barack Obama, spends more on military "than the next eight nations combined."
Last month, Obama proposed a 534-billion dollar defense budget package for the 2016 fiscal year, about 3.6 times China's budget this year. This year's new increase will do little to close that gap.
It would, however, break a multi-year run of double-digit increases in China's defense budget, and mark the slowest growth in years, if not decades.
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