India is the world’s five largest arms importer

New Delhi. India remains the world’s top arms importer, although its imports declined by 11 percent between 2013-17 and 2018-22. This information was given in a report released on Monday by Stockholm-based think tank Sipri. The decline in India’s arms imports is related to a complex procurement process, diversification of arms suppliers and preference for domestic designs over imports, the report said.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said that the world’s five largest arms importers during 2018-22 were India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Australia and China. According to the report, the five largest arms exporters include the US, Russia, France, China and Germany. The report said imports by Pakistan, the world’s eighth-largest arms importer, increased by 14 per cent during 2018-22, with China being its main supplier.
While the Russian invasion of Ukraine during this period had limited impact on the global arms trade, the report found that Kiev is set to become the third largest arms importer in 2022, after Qatar and India. The country became the 14th largest importer for the five-year period 2018-22, accounting for 2 percent of global arms imports.

4 Muslim countries in top 10
The SIPRI report said that during the year 2018-22, three countries in the Middle East were Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt among the top 10 importers of arms.

Saudi Arabia was the world’s second largest arms importer during 2018-22 and received 9.6 percent of all arms imports during this period. At the same time, Qatar’s arms imports increased by 311 percent between 2013–17 and 2018–22, making it the world’s third largest arms importer during 2018–22. Apart from this, Pakistan remained at number eight in this list.