Committee spokesman Preecha Vajrabhaya said the item had been approved without changes.

"The Defence Ministry will re-ceive its full appropriation as per its request because military spending has been drastically cut and has been insufficient since 1997," Preecha added.

Military spending accounts for less than 2 per cent of gross domestic product while neighbouring countries allocate between 2 per cent and 5 per cent for defence, he said.

The money does not include additional allocations for new weapons. The military has yet to submit requests for arms procurement.

Preecha said new weapons would be paid for from money diverted from "low-priority projects" and would not affect total spending.

He encouraged the military to increase public awareness of the reasons the country needed to spend more on defence.

The committee recommended cutting Transport Ministry spending by Bt622 million because many road-building projects would miss deadlines. The ministry sought a total of Bt70.7 billion.

The committee recommended a cut of Bt786,000 from the Bt62 billion sought by the Public Health Ministry because of an "unclear spending proposal" by the Mental Health Department.

The Science and Technology Ministry saw Bt10 million cut from its Bt9.8 billion appropriations request. The assembly committee encouraged the ministry to save money in geo-informatics and space-technology development and channel it to alternative-energy research.