[THE INVESTOR] South Korea has increased its defense budget for next year by 4 percent amid growing threats from North Korea, the Defense Ministry said on Sept. 6.

The government has allocated a total of 40.335 trillion won (US$36.50 billion) to bolstering the country’s defensive capabilities in 2017, up from 38.799 trillion won set for this year, the ministry said in a statement.

“To counter the North’s asymmetrical threats coming from its weapons of mass destruction, the country badly needs to build a Korea Air and Missile Defense system and ‘kill chain’ to detect, identify and intercept incoming missiles in the shortest possible time,” a ministry official said.

Of the total budget, 12.159 trillion won will be spent to improve the country‘s existing aircraft and anti-missile capabilities and the remaining 28.176 trillion won will be injected as operating costs for troops and armaments, the statement said.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)