India, Pak leading buyers of weapons: US report

Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the leading buyers of weapons in 2006 while the United States was the topmost supplier of arms to the developing world, a Congressional study has revealed.

The report, to be formally released on Monday, said Russia and Britain followed the US in the list of arms suppliers. The report added that the global arms market was highly competitive and arms-producing countries not only aimed at raising profit margins but also tried to influence these developing nations politically.

However, due to rising fuel prices, the sales plummeted to $28.8 billion in 2006 as against the sale of $31.8 billion in 2005. During this phase, many developing countries, except the oil producing economies, upgraded their current stock of weapons instead of buying new ones.

Titled 'Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations', the report has been prepared by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. The report presents interesting insights and observations connecting weapons sales and global politics.

Russia has been a major supplier of weapons to Iran in the last few years, said the report. The two countries struck a $700 million deal for surface-to-air missiles in 2005. But  anxious over Iran's nuclear programme, Russia did not finalise new conventional arms deals with Iran in 2006.

The report also observed that the United States had signed weapons-sales

agreements with certain nations whose performance regarding democracy and human rights was under skepticism and drew official criticism.

According to the study, the United States had agreed to sell weapons worth $10.3 billion  to the developing world, or 35.8 per cent of these deals worldwide in 2006.

Russia made a deal of $8.1 billion or 28.1 per cent while Britain bagged the third place with $3.1 billion or 10.8 per cent of the worldwide deals.

On the buyers' side, Pakistan concluded $5.1 billion in agreements to buy arms last year, followed by India and Saudi Arabia with $3.5 billion and $3.2 billion in agreements respectively.

Arms sales to both developed and developing nations reached $40.3 billion in 2006, recording 13 per cent fall from previous year.

Meanwhile, China also plays an interesting role as a buyer as well as a seller. While it buys advanced air and naval weapons from Russia, it sells less expensive arms to developing nations, the report noted.