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MOSCOW - Russia has overtaken the United States to become the developing world's arms dealer of choice for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, striking a record number of arms deals last year.
According to a report prepared for the United States Congress, Russia captured almost one-quarter of the arms market in the developing world last year, winning new business worth US$7 billion ($10.5 billion), up from US$5.4 billion in 2004. The report covered government-to-government arms deals but excluded agreements by commercial dealers.
France, the US and Britain were second, third, and fourth respectively.
Russian sales included missile defence systems to Iran, military aircraft to China, heavy battle tanks to India, and multiple consignments of Kalashnikov assault rifles.
The report by Richard Grimmett, an expert at the Congressional Research Service, said Russia's state arms industry had staged a comeback since the Soviet collapse.
Moscow has been helped by the fact that the developing world is in the grip of an arms race. Government-to-government deals totalled US$30.2 billion last year, the highest figure in real terms for the past eight years.
Entitled Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, the report named China, India and Iran as the Kremlin's best customers and predicted Russia would dominate an "intensely competitive" market for the next decade.
Russia does not have a commanding lead though. France was rated second-biggest dealer in the developing world with new business worth US$6.3 billion while America, at US$6.18 billion, was third.
The report put Russia's success down to the fact that it has abandoned its post-Soviet policy of only accepting hard currency.
- INDEPENDENT
