Pakistan has announced a defense budget for 2022-2023 of 1.53 trillion PKR ($ 7.5 billion). The budget is 12% higher than the initial military spending in 2021-2022, and 3% higher than last year’s revised spending of 1.48 trillion PKR.

The new budget is about 16% of total government spending for the year. However, rising defense spending is offset by rising inflation. Announcing the budget on June 10, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said inflation in Pakistan is nearly 12%, a 10-year high.

Budget documents show that the defense budget for 2022-2023 contains PKR 567.5 billion on staff costs, which is 1% more than the revised appropriation for 2021-2022. The new budget also consists of 411.1 billion rupees and 368.9 billion rupees for physical assets and operating expenses, up 6% and 4% respectively over revised expenditures.