ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE
Russia’s arms industry moved to second place, while US retained its first place, according to an annual report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
According to the report, sales of various arms and military services by the world’s largest arms manufacturing and military services companies totaled $398.2 billion in 2017.
The total for the SIPRI Top 100 is 2.5% higher than in 2016 and 44% higher since 2002, which is the year the for which there is comparable data; excluding China). This represents three years of growth in the Top 100 arms sales.
The top 10 for 2017, with the respective rank in 2016, is as follows, the full list with sales can be found here:
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Significantly, US companies increased their shares of total Top 100 arms sales. In 2017, the US has 42 listed companies. Taken together, US arms sales went up 2%, to $226.6 billion and represents 57% of the total Top 100 arms sales.
Five US companies were listed in the top 10 in 2017, 4 of them in the top 5.
“US companies directly benefit from the US Department of Defense’s ongoing demand for weapons,” says Aude Fleurant, Director of SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme.
With arms sales amounting to $44.9 billion, Lockheed Martin remained at the first spot in 2017.
“The gap between Lockheed Martin and Boeing—the two largest arms producers in the world—increased from $11 billion in 2016 to $18 billion in 2017,” Fleurant said.
Boeing and Raytheon also remained on the 2nd and 3rd position respectively.
Russia became the second largest arms exporter in 2017. The sales of Russian companies amounted to 9.5% of the sales in the Top 100. This is the first time the UK is not the second largest producer since 2002. Together, the arms sales of the 10 Russian companies that are listed in the Top 100 increased by 8.5% in 2017, to $37.7 billion.
“Russian companies have experienced significant growth in their arms sales since 2011,” Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme said. “This is in line with Russia’s increased spending on arms procurement to modernize its armed forces.”
In 2017, a Russian company appeared in the Top for the first time since the SIPRI Top 100 began.
“Almaz-Antey, which was already Russia’s largest arms-producing company, increased its arms sales by 17 per cent in 2017, to $8.6 billion,” says Alexandra Kuimova, Research Assistant with SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme.
In addition to Almaz-Antey, three other Russian companies increased their arms sales by more than 15% in 2017: United Engine Corporation (25%), High Precision Systems (22%) and Tactical Missiles Corporation (19%).
The UK retained its position as the biggest arms producer in Western Europe.
The combined arms sales of the 24 Western European countries listed in the Top 100 went up by 3.8% in 2017, to $94.9 billion, which accounted for 23.8% of the Top 100 total.
The UK’s total arms sales amounted to $35.7 billion and it had seven companies listed in the Top 100.
“The combined arms sales of British companies were 2.3 per cent higher than in 2016,” Fleurant said. “This was largely due to increases in the arms sales of BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and GKN.”
BAE Systems is the UK’s biggest arms manufacturer and is ranked 4th in the Top 100. Its arms sales rose by 3.3% in 2017, to $22.9 billion.
Other notable developments in arms sales in 2017 including:
- An increase of Turkish arms sales of 24% in 2017. “This significant increase reflects Turkey’s ambitions to develop its arms industry to fulfil its growing demand for weapons and become less dependent on foreign suppliers,” Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Arms and Military Expenditure Programme said.
- India had four companies listed in the Top 100 and their total arms sales amounted to $7.5 billion in 2017, which is 1.9% of the total Top 100 sales.
- The sales of the top 15 general manufacturing companies listed in the Fortune Global 500 totaled $2.311 trillion in 2017. Nearly, 10 times greater than the total arms sales of the top 15 arms producers – $231.6 billion, and almost 6 times greater than the total arms sales in 2017 – $398.2 billion.
The SIPRI Arms Industry Database was created in 1989. Initially, it excluded data for Eastern European countries, including the Soviet Union. The current version, which started in 2002, includes data from companies in Russia. Chinese companies are still not included, due to a lack of data on which to make reasonable or consistent estimate of arms sales dating back to 2002.
‘Arms sales’ are defined as sales of military goods and services to military customers domestically and abroad. Unless otherwise specified, all changes are expressed in real terms. All changes between 2016 and 2017 are based on the list of companies ranked in 2017 (i.e. the annual comparison is between the same set of companies).
Happy for Russia! Congratulations! It has been tough on you but you did it! It is significant that many countries made the choice under immense pressure from usa. Still, I wonder when are we going to see the demilitarization process on the move. May be when the warmongering monsters are eliminated, starting with the masters.
The whole Jew controlled Americunt economy is built on wars, guns , promoting terrorism, death and evil, while the average trailer trash lives worse than a dog. US is the only OECD country where male life spam is in annual decline thanks to lack of health care, drugs and sheer destitution.
Their economy dont say like Your crap at all.