China today hiked its defence budget by 10.7 per cent to 115.7 billion US Dollars, underlining Beijing's military ambitions amid territorial disputes with neighbours. The double-digit rise in defence budget for 2013-14 was announced by Premier Wen Jiabao at the Chinese Parliament, the National People's Congress, which opened its annual session this morning. As per the budgetary papers placed at the NPC, a sum of 720.168 billion Yuan was allocated for defence, which at the current exchange rate amounted to 115.7 billion US Dollars, to make Chinese armed forces more mechanised and information-based. Outgoing Premier Wen also presented a lengthy work report on the decade old achievements of his government.