BEIJING: China's defence budget this year will rise by about seven to eight percent compared with 2015, the spokeswoman for the Chinese parliament said on Friday.

Spokeswoman Fu Ying told a news conference that the actual figure would be released on Saturday, when the annual session of China's largely rubber-stamp parliament opens.

Last year, defence spending was budgeted to rise 10.1 percent to 886.9 billion yuan ($135.39 billion).

($1 = 6.5506 Chinese yuan renminbi)