NEW DELHI: India was the world’s biggest buyer of weapons in the last five years while global arms trade grew to its highest level since the Cold War, a leading think-tank said.
“India was the world’s largest importer of major arms in 2012-16, accounting for 13 per cent of the global total. Between 2007-11 and 2012-16 it increased its arms imports by 43 per cent. In 2012-16 India’s imports were far greater than those of its regional rivals China and Pakistan,” the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report.
The Middle East region accounted for 29 per cent of global arms imports in 2012-16, recording a growth of 86 percent between the five-year periods of 2007-11 and 2012-16.
Saudi Arabia ranked as the world’s second largest arms importer in 2012-16, with an increase of 212 per cent.
Imports by countries in Southeast Asia increased 6.2 per cent, with Vietnam in particular hiking its imports significantly in 2012-16.
The United States, Russia, China, France and Germany are the world’s top five arms traders, accounting for 74 per cent of total sales.
The volume of global transfers of major weapons has grown continuously since 2004 and increased by 8.4 per cent between the two five-year cycles SIPRI studied. The think-tank noted that arms trade in 2012-16 reached its highest volume for any five-year period since the end of the Cold War.
Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher with SIPRI, said while China is increasingly able to substitute arms imports with indigenous products, India remains dependent on weapons technology from countries such as Russia, the US, European states, Israel and South Korea.
The US was the top arms exporter with a one-third share in global sales and almost half of its weapons were supplied to the Middle East.
Russia’s share was 23 percent in the 2012-16 period and 70 per cent of its arms were bought by India, Vietnam, China and Algeria.
China increased its arms exports from 3.8 to 6.2 per cent between 2007-11 and 2012-16. – Bernama