Israel is world’s 10th largest arms exporter, report says

Israel has been the 10th largest international arms exporter over the past five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Measuring the arms trade from 2017 to 2021 in its latest report, the independent global security think tank in Sweden, reveals that Europe’s market share has increased as a result of a rise in demand from Gulf states.

Israel accounted for 2.4 per cent of international arms exports during that period, with the top recipients being India, Azerbaijan and Vietnam.

The US is the world’s biggest weapons exporter, accounting for 38.6 per cent of sales, followed by Russia 18.6 per cent, France 10.7 per cent, China 4.6 per cent and Germany 4.5 per cent.

The next five are Italy, the UK, South Korea, Spain and Israel.

The only other Middle East countries in the top 25 weapons exporters were Turkey, at 12th, the United Arab Emirates, ranked 18th and Jordan, 25th.

Israel’s volume of exports dropped by 5.6 per cent between 2017 and 2021, compared to the previous five years. Tel Aviv listed 14th in terms of arms imports, accounting for 1.9 per cent of the global share. Ninety-two per cent of Israel’s imports came from the US, mostly F-35 jets and guided bombs, followed by shipments from Germany and Italy. Germany supplies Israel’s submarines.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has hit supply chains across the world, had very little impact on the arms trade, the report added.

The report is composed using SIPRI’s Arms Transfers Database, which has information on all transfers of conventional weapons from 1950 until 2021. The database was last updated on 14 March and includes the largest arms exporters in 2021.

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