US tops global market in weapons sales

WASHINGTON (92 News) – The US ranks first in arms sales for 2015 with $43 billion in weapons sold to other countries. According to the New York Times, weapons suppliers primarily focused on developing countries for foreign arms sales. In 2015, such agreements were valued at $65.2 billion, but deliveries totaled $33.6 billion. The US took 50.29 percent of arms transfer agreements to both developed and developing nations with the value of all such agreements valued at $79.9 billion. The US and France both grew their market shares, by around $4 billion and $9 billion, respectively. Russia, another dominant power in the global arms market, saw a modest decline in weapons order, dropping to $11.1 billion in sales from the $11.2 billion total in 2014, the New York Times reported. China reached $6 billion in weapons sales, up from its 2014 total of over $3 billion. For buyers, Qatar ranked first among developing nations spending some $17.5 billion, Egypt second with $11.9 billion, and Saudi Arabia third with $8.6 billion. From 2008 to 2015, developing countries comprised of 80.39 percent of all arms agreements worldwide with a slight increase in 2015 at 81.70 percent. Other leading buyers included South Korea, Pakistan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iraq. Although global tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of diminishing, the total size of the global arms trade dropped to around $80 billion in 2015 from the 2014 total of $89 billion, the study found.