ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will increase defence spending by 17 percent in the 2010/11 fiscal year as the US ally intensifies its battle against Taliban insurgents operating from their enclaves on the border with Afghanistan.

Defence spending is set to rise to 442.2 billion rupees ($5.17 billion) for the 2010/11 fiscal year beginning on July 1, compared with 378.13 billion rupees allocated in 2009/10.

“I think security is our topmost issue,” Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh told parliament in his budget speech.

“We are facing a situation in which our armed forces, paramilitary forces and security forces are laying down their lives … They should know from this house that we all stand by them.”

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