Ukraine plans record-high defense budget for 2016
Xinhua, December 2, 2015 Adjust font size:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday signed a decree, instructing the government to boost the country's defense budget for next year by 11 percent to about 4.2 billion U.S. dollars, a record high since Ukraine's independence in 1991.
The decree, published on the presidential website, said that in 2016 Ukraine will contribute 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to serve its defense and security needs.
In particular, the increased defense budget will be used for developing new weapons and equipment, enhancing combat capabilities of military troops, strengthening the country's air defense system and modernizing the state network of special communications, the decree said.
After two decades of keeping its defense expenditures at about 1.5 percent of the GDP, last year Ukraine decided to increase the share of military spending in its 2015 budget to 2.7 percent due to the conflict in eastern regions between government troops and pro-independence insurgents.
The Ukrainian government has estimated that the country's spending on defense will reach about 3.8 billion dollars this year. Endi