Sri Lanka will slash its army by a third to 135,000 by next year and to 100,000 by 2030, the defence minister said on Friday, as the country facing its worst economic crisis in more than seven decades tries to cut costs.
"Military spending is basically state-borne expenditure which indirectly stimulates and opens avenues for economic growth by way of assuring national and human security," Premitha Bandara Thennakoon said in a statement.
(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe and Sakshi Dayal; Editing by Krishna N. Das)
