S Korea increases defense budget

S. Korea increases defense budget to better counter N. Korean threatsUpdated: 2015-04-20 18:24:21 KST

Two-hundred-14 billion U.S. dollars.
That's about how much South Korea is planning to inject into its defense budget from 2016 to 2020 to beef up its military.
This is according to South Korea's defense ministry, which unveiled its five-year defense plan on Monday.
One-hundred-43 billion dollars will be used for administrative expenses such as troop salary increases and strengthening the military as a whole, for example, by bolstering its cyber warfare capabilities.
The rest will go toward enhancing the nation's defense capabilities.


"We allocated the money based on the key components for deterring North Korea's provocations -- Kill Chain and Korea Air Missile Defense -- and on strengthening the military's capabilities in war."

Kill Chain uses multi-purpose satellites, unmanned aircraft and missiles to find and destroy targets, while KAMD utilizes Patriot interceptors and surface-to-air missiles.
Roughly 8 billion dollars will go toward building the two systems.
That's more than half a billion more than what was allocated in the previous five-year plan put forward last year.
The budget increase comes as North Korea is believed to have made significant progress on miniaturizing a nuclear weapon and as its ballistic missiles continue to pose a threat.
With the two systems, South Korea aims to gain the capability to find and destroy North Korea's mobile missiles launchers in 30 minutes

(Stand-up)
"However, many experts point out that South Korea will continue to be under threat until the mid 2020s, as that's when the two systems are expected to be ready for deployment. They say, until then, Seoul will need to bridge the gap in its missile defense capability.
Laah Hyun-kyung, Arirang News."

Reporter : jlaah@arirang.co.kr