Saudi Arabia outpaces India to become top defense importer: IHS

[IndoCarib]

(Reuters) - 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.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are part of a U.S.-led coalition involved in air strikes on Islamist militants who have carved out an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The militants have vowed to topple the governments of Western-allied countries in the Middle East.

“When we look at the likely export addressable opportunities at a global level for the defense industry, five of the 10 leading countries are from the Middle East,” Moores said.

“The Middle East is the biggest regional market and there are $110 billion in opportunities in the coming decade.”

The top five importers in 2014 were Saudi Arabia, India, China, the UAE and Taiwan. The 2013 rankings were India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Taiwan and China.

Saudi Arabia and UAE together imported $8.6 billion in defense systems in 2014, more than the imports of Western Europe combined, IHS said. The biggest beneficiary of the Middle Eastern market was the United States, with $8.4 billion worth of Middle Eastern exports in 2014 after $6 billion in 2013.

The IHS survey does not include munitions, small arms, homeland security or intelligence programs.

Saudi Arabia outpaces India to become top defense importer: IHS| Reuters

 

[rockstar08]

interesting

 

[Beast]

It just show the weaken of India economy in 2013 has taken effect on India.

 

[Nike]

It's more like India increasingly become self reliance in weapons manufacturing. The same pattern had been happened to China one decade before.

 

[DIRECT ACTION]

It just show the weaken of India economy in 2013 has taken effect on India.

so according to your logic china is economically in worse condition in 2013 as it is in 4th position in defense import

 

[Beast]

so according to your logic china is economically in worse condition in 2013 as it is in 4th position in defense import

Please! China is a massive exporter of weapons and many of weapons are produced locally. Let me challenge you, is India even rank in top 10 of weapon export countries for past 5 years?

That is the different between China and India. Please face the reality.

It's more like India increasingly become self reliance in weapons manufacturing. The same pattern had been happened to China one decade before.

Hardly! India shall have outpace Saudi but lack of money forces to shelve the 126 Rafale deal.

 

[Kesang]

It just show the weaken of India economy in 2013 has taken effect on India.

Really? But I thought that India increased its military budget by more than 6 percents.

 

[Echo_419]

Please! China is a massive exporter of weapons and many of weapons are produced locally. Let me challenge you, is India even rank in top 10 of weapon export countries for past 5 years?

That is the different between China and India. Please face the reality.



Hardly! India shall have outpace Saudi but lack of money forces to shelve the 126 Rafale deal.

Great logic man

 

[Nike]

Please! China is a massive exporter of weapons and many of weapons are produced locally. Let me challenge you, is India even rank in top 10 of weapon export countries for past 5 years?

That is the different between China and India. Please face the reality.



Hardly! India shall have outpace Saudi but lack of money forces to shelve the 126 Rafale deal.

Not really the case, if they lack of money like what you have said they should abandoned lot of their more ambitious project right now, but is not the case. As you can see they keep building Kolkata class project (those project is a lot of ambitious than the rafales as it costing more than 12 billion US dollar), building more AAW Frigate, induct more Akash missile, keep producing Pinaka MLRS, keep producing Su-30 MKI and lot of other stuff.

 

[Beast]

Not really the case, if they lack of money like what you have said they should abandoned lot of their more ambitious project right now, but is not the case. As you can see they keep building Kolkata class project (those project is a lot of ambitious than the rafales as it costing more than 12 billion US dollar), building more AAW Frigate, induct more Akash missile, keep producing Pinaka MLRS, keep producing Su-30 MKI and lot of other stuff.

Have you figure how fast those project are materialising? MRCA procurement definitely is stalled at the moment.

 

[Nike]

Have you figure how fast those project are materialising? MRCA procurement definitely is stalled at the moment.

How fast? just look from what they've been built in recent years and they keep materialising in various degrees according to the challenges and opportunities. Those projects still goes on, and India straight to the point of Self reliance in weapons manufacturing, sometimes we will ridiculed them over some failure project but it's not always the case as they had more success to be listed.

Stalled is not means cancelled right?

 

[SrNair]

I think we have finalised deals of around 16 billion $in this year.In fact except MMRCA allothers finalised.MMRCA is just stalled because of their twisting in orginial RFP .And latest news is saying that it also cleared .Money is not an issue for us

Please! China is a massive exporter of weapons and many of weapons are produced locally. Let me challenge you, is India even rank in top 10 of weapon export countries for past 5 years?

That is the different between China and India. Please face the reality.



Hardly! India shall have outpace Saudi but lack of money forces to shelve the 126 Rafale deal.

 

[vsdave2302]

It just show the weaken of India economy in 2013 has taken effect on India.

A great brain in the area of Defense and economy once again strikes here with his great insight.

 

[Beast]

How fast? just look from what they've been built in recent years and they keep materialising in various degrees according to the challenges and opportunities. Those projects still goes on, and India straight to the point of Self reliance in weapons manufacturing, sometimes we will ridiculed them over some failure project but it's not always the case as they had more success to be listed.

Stalled is not means cancelled right?

You need to look at the induction time frame and not to trick by India style of always talk big and over optimistic of time frame. Let me ask you, LCA project starts in what time and how many LCA has inducted for operation so far?

How many scopene class submarine has enter services? Then the IN is so desperate to mask their slow induction of INS kollkata class destroyer that they can claim it operation without the important LSRAM installed yet?

 

[Nike]

You need to look at the induction time frame and not to trick by India style of always talk big and over optimistic of time frame. Let me ask you, LCA project starts in what time and how many LCA has inducted for operation so far?

How many scopene class submarine has enter services?

One or two even three project doesn't count of all eggs, look at their Ballistic missile, rocket artillery, Surface combatant and Air Defense program along with some of their Armored vehicle and Electronic warfare programme they all had been completed along with the schedule.

If you want to ridicule India over something do it yourself