* Image: ESCIF (Healthcare not warfare)
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Monitoring international official arms transfers, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released a fact sheet on the top 100 arms-producing and military services companies in 2020.
The fact sheet has revealed that the arms sales of the SIPRI Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies totalled 531 billion US dollars in 2020, a 1.3-percent increase compared with 2019.
The SIPRI has found that "global arms production proved to be largely resilient against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting economic downturn", noting that "there were differences in impact between industry sectors and between individual companies."
"While the global economy contracted by 3.1 percent in 2020, the aggregated arms sales of the Top 100 increased," the fact sheet has underlined, attributing this situation to at least three key factors:
Some of the country-based key facts from the fact sheet are as follows:
According to the fact sheet, "collectively, the arms sales of companies in the Top 100 based outside the USA, China, Russia and Europe totalled 43.1 billion US dollars in 2020—an increase of 3.4 percent on 2019. This represents 8.1 per cent of the total arms sales of the Top 100."
The SIPRI has noted that "five of these companies are based in Japan, four in South Korea, three each in Israel and India, and one each in Canada, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)."
Referring to the Aselsan, Turkey's defense corporation headquartered in the capital city of Ankara, the SIPRI fact sheet has said: "Aselsan (ranked 51st) is based in Turkey and had arms sales of 2.2 billion US dollars in 2020, an increase of 12 percent on 2019."
In the previous SIPRI report, Aselsan ranked 53rd.
(HA/SD)
Click here for the full fact sheet