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1st Ld: China announces 7.6-pct defense budget rise, lowest in six years

Xinhua, March 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

China on Saturday announced the country's lowest defense budget increase in six years in the wake of rising economic headwinds and last year's massive drawdown of service people.

According to a budget report to the national legislature annual session, the government plans to raise the 2016 defense budget by 7.6 percent to 954 billion yuan (about 146 billion U.S. dollars).

The increase last year was 10.1 percent.

The fresh raise will 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."

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 six years. Endi