South Korea will delay a major reform plan designed to produce a smaller but stronger military because of the worsening economic situation, officials said Monday.
The 621-trillion won (414 billion dollar) plan called for Seoul to cut the size of its mainly conscript military to about 500,000 from the current 680,000 by 2020, but to arm it with new tanks, fighter jets and Aegis destroyers.
"We are going to adjust the pace of troop cuts for economic reasons and also due to a change in our security situation around the Korean peninsula," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.
Procurement of new weapons would be rescheduled or delayed.
The original programme unveiled in 2006 presumed an annual economic growth rate of seven percent, he said. Estimates vary but the economy is forecast to grow less than four percent this year.
"When looking at today's economic forecasts, it appears very difficult to implement the plans," Kim Kyoung-Deok, a ministry official in charge of the reform plan, told Yonhap news agency.
He said the government had already failed to secure enough funding for planned changes in 2006 and 2007.
The delays would mean an immediate cut in overseas arms purchases.
South Korea bought nearly 900 million dollars' worth of foreign weapons in 2007, Yonhap said, over 95 percent of which came from the United States.
The military, backed up by a 28,500-strong US contingent, faces off against North Korea's 1.1 million-strong armed forces.
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