New Delhi, March 13
India has once again emerged as the world’s largest importer of weapons and military equipment, accounting for 11 per cent of all such international imports.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Australia and China are the next four big global importers.
The US, Russia and France are the world’s three biggest exporters with 40 per cent, 16 per cent and 11 per cent global share, respectively.
These trends have emerged from a report released by the Sweden-based think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday morning. The assessment was done for a five-year period (2018-2022). The think-tank releases its annual report in March each year.
Titled ‘Trends in international arms transfers-2022’, the report compared two five years blocks—between 2013-17 and 2018-2022—saying Indian arms imports in the global share have decreased.
“Despite this, India was the world’s largest importer of major arms in 2018-22 and accounted for 11 per cent of total global arms imports in the period,” the report said.
Russia remains the largest supplier of major arms to India and supplied 45 per cent of all Indian imports. France met India’s 29 per cent of import needs while the US supplied 11 per cent of equipment. India also imported from Israel, South Korea and South Africa.
