China's defense budget this year will rise by about seven to eight percent compared with 2015, the spokeswoman for the Chinese parliament said on Friday, Reuters reported.
Spokeswoman Fu Ying told a news conference that the actual figure would be released on Saturday, when the annual session of China's largely rubber-stamp parliament opens.
Last year, defense spending was budgeted to rise 10.1 percent to 886.9 billion yuan ($135.39 billion).