Tag Archives: SIPRI
China boosts arms exports by 74%, while becoming more self-sufficient
Comparing two five-year periods between 2007-11 and 2012-16, the volume of Chinese exports of major arms increased by 74 per cent. Its share of the global total of exports rose from 3.8 to 6.2 per cent, making it the third-largest supplier in the world, following the United States and Russia.
Unlike the US, which accounts for one-third of exports and supplies at least 100 countries, China delivered major arms to 44 countries, mostly in Asia and Africa. More than 60 per cent of China’s exports went to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and another 22 per cent went to Africa.China has also been expanding its market. In 2015, it exported type 90 multi-barrel rocket launchers to Peru, the first time Chinese weapons were used to equip Peru’s armed forces. A report released by the Pentagon last April estimated that China’s arms sales from 2010 to 2014 totalled about US$15 billion. Continue reading
SIPRI: Arms Trade 2012-2016
SIPRI: Global Arms Trade Highest since Cold War
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said on Monday that more weapons were delivered between 2012 and 2016 than any other five-year period since 1990. Saudi Arabia, which leads a military intervention in Yementhat has cost hundreds of civilian lives, was the world’s second largest importer after India, increasing its intake by 212%, mainly from the US and the UK.
Asia was the main recipient region in the world as India dwarfed regional rivals, China and Pakistan, by accounting for 13% of the global imports. While India received most of its arms from Russia, the Saudis relied heavily on US arms. US and Russia together supplied more than half of all exports. China, France and Germany were also among the top five exporters. Continue reading
SIPRI’s Arms Trade Treaty database now covers Latin America and the Caribbean
SIPRI is proud to announce that is has expanded and improved its online database for Mapping Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)-relevant cooperation and assistance activities to include activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The database now contains information on over 350 activities involving partner states from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean since 2012. Continue reading
SIPRI: extended military expenditure data
SIPRI is proud to announce the online release of its extended military expenditure data. Previously, the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database covered the period 1988–2015; the extended military expenditure data goes back in most cases at least to the 1960s, and in some cases to 1949.
The new data highlights long-term trends in military spending. In the case of the USA, clear peaks in spending can be seen during the Korean War, the ‘Reagan build-up’ and the more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Western Europe, military spending rose steadily during the cold war, while in Africa, military spending has surged in recent decades as the continent’s economies have improved.
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Global nuclear weapons 2016
At the start of 2016 nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—possessed approximately 4,120 operationally deployed nuclear weapons. If all nuclear warheads are counted, these states together possessed a total of approximately 15,395 nuclear weapons compared with 15,850 in early 2015 (see table 1).
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Health vs military spending as a share of GDP
SIPRI: Global military spending is on the rise
The world heaped more than $1.6 trillion on military programs and personnel in 2015, roughly 1 percent more than in 2014, a SIPRI analyst declared at the nonpartisan Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. on April 5. The increase follows four years of decline, which was preceded by 12 years of steady increases.
So the brief falloff is over, and the familiar routine is back. Continue reading
SIPRI: International arms trade on the rise
The majority went to Asia and to the crisis region of the Middle East. Between the Persian Gulf and the Bosphorus, imports of heavy weapons – the SIPRI report is concerned only with these – rose by 61 percent. Between 2011 and 2015, India was the only country to import more weapons that Saudi Arabia – a land with just 30 million inhabitants. Compared with 2006–2010, the oil sheikhdom’s arms purchases have almost trebled. Number four in the list of the biggest importers of arms is the United Arab Emirates, with a population of barely five million. Turkey is number six.
SIPRI: Dramatic increase in arms imports in the Middle East
The international transfer of weapons to the Middle East has risen dramatically over the past five years, with Saudi Arabia’s imports for 2011-15 increasing by 275% compared with 2006–10, according to an authoritative report.
Overall, imports by states in the Middle East increased by 61%; imports by European states decreased by 41% over the same period. Britain sold more weapons to Saudi Arabia than to any other country. Saudi Arabia is also the biggest US arms market and buys more American arms than British, the report shows. Continue reading
SIPRI: Rising arms exports from Germany and Russia
The first development which has to be pointed out is the fact that the total sales of the world’s top 100 arms producing companies are quite stable. They have gone down a bit over the past two years, but not that much. We are also seeing a more regional, or more national development – and one of them is very clear: Russian companies have seen a very steep increase in their total sales. So, the companies in the top 100 based in Russia have increased their revenues from 2013 to 2014 by almost 50 percent. That is a very significant change. By contrast, there was a fall in revenues of companies in the US and western Europe.
5% Digest (week 16/03/15)
According to SIPRI’s latest report, there is a 16% increase in the volume of arms transferred around the world. The world’s biggest arms exporters in the past five years were the US, Russia, China, Germany and France. China’s exports of major arms rose by 143% in the five years to 2014 from the previous five years. Germany’s arms exports fell by 43% and France’s dropped 27% in the same time frame.
India was the world’s largest single arms importer. Four other Asian countries, China, Pakistan, South Korea and Singapore, are also among the top 10 largest arms importers.
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Tipping Point North South 