The Swedish Government has set a new target for the number of annual army recruits, a media report said.
The new target, announced on Thursday, follows on from a proposal presented last year as part of a government inquiry into expanding Sweden's military defence capabilities.
"This is the first stage in a process where we are testing the possibility of increasing the size of the defence force," Minister for Defence, Peter Hultqvist, told Swedish Television, Xinhua news agency reported.
He said the government move means that financial and organisational prerequisites for expanding the army will be reviewed.
Sweden cancelled the draft in 2010 but decided to reintroduce a partial draft in March this year when the government announced that 13,000 young men and women would be called in for army enrolment.
Out of those, a total 4,000 would be selected for basic training in 2018 and another 4,000 in 2019. The new target is to have 5,000 recruits per year from 2020.
--IANS
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