The State Council, China's cabinet, has proposed the country's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), to approve a 247.7 billion yuan (US$29.8 billion) national defense budget for the year 2005, a spokesman said Friday.
  
"This is still a fairly small amount compared with (the military spending) of other major countries in the world, in terms of its proportion to China's total financial expenditures and gross national product," said Jiang Enzhu, spokesman of the upcoming third annual session of the 10th NPC, slated to begin on March 5, at a press conference Friday morning.
  
The budgeted money will be mainly used for the raise of payment and social security guarantee for the servicemen, the arrangement of officers and soldiers discharged in China's latest move to cut its troops by 200,000, and the military's armament upgrading to promote the modernization of China's national defense, Jiang said.

(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2005)