Russia is distant second weapons producer

Bomber TU-160 Russia GPSThe Russian bomber airplane, TU-160 at the 2013 victory parade in Moscow. Photo: By Vitaly V. Kuzmin - http://vitalykuzmin.net/?q=node/498, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26283786

Russia is the second largest weapon producer

Russia has passed Britain to become the world’s second largest weapon producer after the United States according to the Swedish Peace Research Institute SIPRI. 

 

“Russian companies have experienced significant growth in the weapons market since 2011. This is in line with Russia’s increased monetary spending on weapons to modernise defence forces,” said Siemon Wezeman, a researcher at SIPRI, in a statement on Monday.

Russia has ten companies among SIPRI’s list of the world’s 100 largest weapon companies in 2017. The ten companies sold to a total of 37.7 billion dollars according to SIPRI. That is 9.5% of the total sales among the companies listed, amounting to around NOK 319 billion.

The sales increase thus sends Russia to a second place in front of the UK, which has been the second largest weapon manufacturer since 2002.

The US tops the list. 42 US arms companies accounted for 57% of the total sales among the 100 companies.

The Swedish Peace Research Institute said it has noticed that sales of Turkish companies increased by 24% in 2017. China is not on the list since SIPRI has not been able to access sales figures.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today