China on Tuesday said that its defense expenditure is "relatively low" compared with other countries in the world.

"Compared with other countries, China's defense expenditure remains at a relatively low level in the world regarding its total amount, its ratio in GNP and per capita expenditure," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

"The Chinese government has always attached importance to controlling the scale of its defense expenditure," said Jiang at a regular press conference.

China's defense expenditure in 2004 was 220 billion yuan, an annual growth of 15.31 percent. It increased by 12.5 percent to reach 247.49 billion yuan in 2005. The budget for 2006 was 283.83 billion yuan.

According to a white paper on China's National Defense issued at the end of 2006, in 2005, China defense expenditure equaled 6.19 percent of that of the United States, 52.95 percent of the United Kingdom's, 71.45 percent of France's and 67.52 percent of Japan's;

China's spending per serviceman averaged 107,607 yuan, amounting to 3.74 percent of that of the United States and 7.07 percent of that of Japan, the white paper said.

Source: Xinhua