Thai military plans hefty shopping list

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's armed forces will submit a 10-year, $8.8 billion (4.3 billion pound) shopping list for a submarine, warplanes and other hardware to the new civilian government after elections next month, officials said on Monday.

The military, which overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup last year, said the spending spree was necessary for Thailand to keep up with its better-equipped neighbours.

"Every country knows what its neighbours have and what it needs to maintain the balance of power," Lieutenant General Pitsanu Puchakarn told Reuters after a weekend meeting of armed forces chiefs.

"If we don't think about these issues now, it will be too late a decade from now," he said.

The military has faced criticism for buying new weapons at a time when the country's economic growth has slowed due to post-coup political uncertainty.

But Pitsanu said the military chiefs proposed to raise defence spending to 1.8 percent of GDP in the first five years to 2014 and to 2.0 percent from 2015-19.

That compared to 1.58 percent of GDP this year.

Singapore, which has the best-equipped military in southeast Asia, spends about 4.0 percent of GDP on defence.

Thai Defence Minister Boonrawd Somtas has said the military needed new tanks, ships, fighters and helicopters after several years of lean budgets following the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis.