SIPRI Report on Arms Trade ranked India as the biggest Importer of Arms

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its latest report on trends in the international arms trade on 14 March 2011. According to the report India has been the world's biggest weapons importer over the past five years. India received 9 percent of the volume of international arms transfers during 2006-10. Russian deliveries accounted for 82 percent of Indian arms imports. India’s arms imports 21 percent from the previous five-year period, with 71 percent of its orders being for aircraft. Rivalries with Pakistan and China as well as internal security challenges are significant factors that drove India’s arms import in the past five years.

Four other Asian countries were named among the top five arms importers. China and South Korea held joint second place on the list of global arms import followed by Pakistan in the third position. Aircraft accounted for 45 percent of Pakistan's arms imports. Pakistan’s arms imports which included warplanes bought from both China and the United States up 128 percent on the previous five-year period. Greece was the fifth largest arms importer with 4 percent of global imports.

The report pointed out that the world's major arms supplying countries had in recent years competed for trade in Libya, and in other Arab countries currently under the grip of pro-democracy uprisings. Ever since the U.N. lifted arms embargo on Libya in September 2003, Britain, France, Italy and Russia had all competed to win orders from Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
Egypt on the other hand received 60 percent of its major arms imports from the United States between 2006 and 2010. Egypt’s imports included M-1A1 tanks and M-113 armored vehicles of the type present during demonstrations in the country in January 2011.

The United States remained the world's largest military equipment exporter, accounting for 30 percent of global arms exports in 2006-10, 44 percent of which went to Asia and Oceania.

SIPRI which specializes in research on conflicts, weapons, arms control and disarmament was created in 1966 and is 50 percent financed by the Swedish state.