Taiwan passes extra $8.6 billion defence budget

Taipei: Taiwan’s parliament on Tuesday passed an extra spending bill of nearly $8.6 billion in its latest bid to boost defence capabilities.

The government proposed a five-year special defence budget of around TW$237.3 billion from 2022 as Chinese warplanes breached its air defence zone at unprecedented levels last year. Last year, Taiwan recorded incursions by around 970 warplanes into its air defence zone, according to a database compiled by AFP, more than double the roughly 380 carried out in 2020.

On Tuesday, Taiwanese lawmakers agreed unanimously to pass the special budget, although cut it by TW$310 million. The package comes on top of a record annual defence budget of TW$471.7 billion set for 2022.