By NNN-IRNA
London : Iran’s defence expenditure per capita remains among the lowest in the Middle East region despite having the second highest population behind Egypt, according to the new publication of Military Balance.
The 2008 edition said that Iran’s total defence spending for 2006, the latest available, was nearly 55 per cent less that Israel’s, despite having ten times the population of the Zionist entity.
Per capita, Israeli regime’s expenditure was calculated to be nearly 17 times higher at an average of Dlrs 1,737 per person compared with only Dlrs 110 for each Iranian.
Israel’s military spending was shown to be the second highest in the world and only Dlrs 59 per capita behind the US, excluding Qatar, which only has a population of less than one million.
Even as a proportion of GDP, Iran’s defence expenditure of 3.3 per cent was found to be well less than half of Israel’s 7.9 per cent, which is among the highest in the world and even more than the US.
Publishers of Military Balance, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), reported that Tel Aviv had increased its proposed defence budget for 2007 following its invasion of Lebanon in the previous summer.
Under a new agreement with the US, it also said Washington was providing Israeli regime with a Dlrs 30 billion package of Foreign Military Financing between 2009 and 2018, an increase amounting to around 25 per cent more than in the previous ten-year period.