Saudi Arabia Becomes World’s Biggest Weapon Importer

Saudi Arabia overtook India to become the world’s biggest weapons importer in 2014, a year when global defense trade rose for the sixth straight year to a record $64.4 billion, research company IHS said on Sunday.

The growth in supplies was due to expanding demand from emerging economies for military aircraft and rising tensions in the Middle East and Asia Pacific, IHS, a provider of global market and economic information, said.

The United States remained the top defense exporter in 2014, ahead of Russia, France, Britain and Germany, a top-five ranking unchanged from 2013, IHS said in an annual defense trade report.

“Growth in Saudi Arabia has been dramatic and, based on previous orders, these numbers are not going to slow down,” an IHS statement quoted its senior defense analyst Ben Moores as saying.

Saudi imports rose 54 percent between 2013 and 2014, and based on planned deliveries imports will grow 52 percent to $9.8 billion in 2015, IHS said, without stating the 2014 sales. One out of every $7 spent on defense imports in 2015 will be spent by Saudi Arabia, it said.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza