China will raise its military budget by 7-8% this year according to Fu Ying, a spokesperson for the annual session of the national legislature.
Ying said on Friday that the increase is in line with China's national defense need and fiscal revenue. Political and media analysts had been expecting this on account of increasing tensions in South China Sea.
The exact figure will be revealed in Saturday's budget report. The world's second largest economy had increased its defense budget by 10.1% last year.
Critics say that massive additional investment by China will lead to an Asian arms race.
China has the world's largest army which has 300,000 soldiers so the paying them itself will be a huge expenditure. In addition, the government is all set to hand out a pay rise.
Still, modernizing the weaponry will eat into the biggest share of the budget.
Some of the experts also predict that a big chunk of additional expenditure will be for missiles and Navy.
