SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's actual military spending is believed to be about 15 times the announced amount in 2009 as the communist regime continues to build up its military capacity despite the country's moribund economy, a South Korean defense research institute said Tuesday.

The North said it spent US$570 million on its military in 2009, but the real expenditure, calculated on an exchange rate based on purchasing power parity terms, was $8.77 billion, the state-run Korea Institute of Defense Analyses (KIDA) said in a report.