Russia, France, and Germany settled at the top 5 in the list of the leading exporters of arms globally. The top 5 corresponds to the three-quarters of all the world's major exports of arms.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released the data on Monday which was used to find the comparison of the data sets with 2014 to 2018. The data showed that the United States leads the list followed by Russia, France, Germany, China, United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Russia's record showed a decrease of 17 percent in exports despite topping the list in Europe. The export of France gained a huge increase of 43 percent and it is ranked the second biggest exporter in Europe.
SIPRI reported that Russia's decline could be attributed to the decrease in demand from India and Venezuela, its two largest clients. Since 2009, Russia's export to Venezuela dropped 96 percent of exports from the top 5 exporters in Western Europe increased by 2 percent as they focus on the Middle East.
France's export gained a significant increase of 261 percent in the Middle East. Germany's followed France in Second after it gained 125 percent. The increase in Italy's arms export in the region is 75 percent while the United Kingdom gained 30 percent more export.
Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest arms importer and it plays a vital role for many nations' export particularly France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Sweden. The SIPRI noted that the long-term effects of the global economic crisis caused imports across Europe to drop by 13 percent. Several countries that are currently in growing conflict with Russia bolster their arsenals despite the overall decrease in imports. Recently, Norway has ordered an anti-submarine warfare aircraft and four submarines from the United States and Germany.
The SIPRI report listed 40 largest importers and it says that international major weapons transfers increased by 10 percent in the last four years compared to the sales from 2208 to 2012. The report also said that weapons sales to the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania increased in the last 10 years while weapon sales to the Americas, Africa, and Europe decreased.
According to the report, the United States sells weapons to at least 98 countries from 2013 to 2017. Saudi Arabia is its leading importer gaining 18 percent of all sales followed by the United Arab Emirates at 7.4 percent and Australia at 6.7 percent.
