A major general of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) said Saturday that despite a steady rise over the past few years, the national defense expenditures still fall short of the actual needs of military reforms and modernization.

"Compared with other major countries in the world, the military expenditures of our country are still at a fairly low level and still can't fully meet the actual needs of pushing forward military reforms and building an IT-supported army," said Major General Ding Jiye, head of the financial division of the PLA's General Logistics Department, in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Premier Wen Jiabao, in his annual government work report to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, Saturday morning, proposed lawmakers approve a national defense budget of 244.66 billion yuan (US$29.58 billion) for 2005, a 12.6 percent increase over the previous year.

"With the sustained, rapid and sound growth of the national economy and the advancement of the military modernization drive, the national defense spending has been on the rise for several years, showing the Party's and government's care for national defense and army building," said Ding.

The money to be added to this year's defense budget will mainly be used for three purposes, namely to raise the living standards of the military servicemen, to provide financial guarantee for military reforms and restructuring, including a program to cut the PLA troops by 200,000 before the end of the year, and to "appropriately increase" the spending on the military's armament purchase and development, said Ding.

"As the conflict between the supply and demand of national defense spending still remains quite outstanding, we must firmly implement the principle of building the military in a frugal and thrifty manner, and try our best to raise the efficiency in the use of the funds," Ding added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2005)