PAKISTAN’S NEW MILITARY BUDGET 2024
15 Billion USD
See posts in this thread for a complete and exact monetary breakdown, accompanied by brief analysis.
Researched and published by the O&S Directorate PSF.
Salient Points:
1. Last year, the largest part of our military expenditure, the ‘defence affairs’ allocation of the Federal Budget was 12.7% of the total budget. This year it is 11.24% of the total budget. Meaning we spent a little more than a one-tenth fractional part of our total national budget on our defence and security.
2. Even with the defence affairs component being a smaller percentage of the Federal Budget this year as compared to last year, the taxpayer rupees allocated are an 18% increase, reflecting Pakistan’s seriousness in combating terrorism and building up conventional firepower in a volatile region and uncertain global geopolitical futures.
3. Even more so, the amount of this expense as compared to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is growing smaller; this year in 2024 it is about 1.7% of GDP. In 2023 it was 2% of GDP. In 2021 it was 2.87% and in 2019 at 3.29%. This is a good situation for national security reasons. It indicates that even with an 18% monetary value increase, the GDP ratio has gone down. During defensive wartime (1965, 1971), Pakistan was spending around 7% of GDP on defence. In today’s terms that would mean a defence budget of around 25 Billion dollars in wartime emergencies. In state of more severe and totalitarian hostilities, in states of central war with complete counterforce commitment, Pakistan could easily scale the ratio up to levels of Ukraine (37% of GDP to defence) which would entail a massive $125 Billion militarisation and wartime mobilisation effort. Nevertheless a a reduction in peacetime defence expenditure as a ratio of GDP even with a double-digit increase in monetary value is a significant and important factor.
4. Last year in 2023 this amount (not the total national defence expenditure) was PKR 1.804 Trillion or $6.471 Billion out of a total federal budget of PKR 14.460 Trillion or $51.872 Billion. This year the defence affairs allocation in the Federal Budget 2024 is PKR 2.128 Trillion or 7.633 Billion USD, out of a total federal budget of PKR 18.887 Trillion or $67.7 Billion.
5. What is quite often mistaken as our national defence spending is actually the Federal Government of Pakistan’s ‘defence affairs and services’ allocation in side the Federal budget’s current expenditure outlays, which is widely mistaken as all of Pakistan’s defence budget where in reality it may be taken as a majority part of the whole but yet still an incomplete component of our total defence expenditure. The total taxpayer spending by the Federal Government of Pakistan on defence and military affairs is more complex, and contains separately-listed components that must be included.
P.S. The FOREX rate used in this publication is taken at 2024’s yearly average of 278.7601 PKR for 1 USD.
Distribution unlimited for public domain
