STOCKHOLM: Sales of arms and military services grew in 2021, researchers said Monday, but were limited by worldwide supply issues related to the pandemic, with the war in Ukraine increasing demand while worsening supply difficulties.
The top 100 arms companies sold weapons and related services totalling $592 billion in 2021, 1.9-percent more than the year before, said the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
However the growth was severely impacted by widespread supply chain issues.
“The lasting impact of the pandemic is really starting to show in arms companies,” Nan Tian, a senior researcher at SIPRI, told AFP.
Disruptions from both labor shortages and difficulties in sourcing raw materials were “slowing down the companies’ ability to produce weapons systems and deliver them on time.
“So what we see really is a potentially slower increase to what many would have expected in arms sales in 2021,” Tian said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also expected to worsen supply chain issues, in part “because Russia is a major supplier of raw materials used in arms production,” said the report’s authors.
But the war has at the same time increased demand.
“Definitely demand will increase in the coming years,” Tian said.
By how much was at the same time harder to gauge, Tian said pointing to two factors that would impact demand.
Firstly, countries that have sent weapons to Ukraine to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars will be looking to replenish stockpiles.
Secondly, the worsening security environment means “countries are looking to procure more weapons.”
With the supply crunch expected to worsen, it could hamper these efforts, the authors noted.
Companies in the US continue to dominate global arms production, accounting for over half, $299 billion, of global sales and 40 of the top companies.
At the same time, the region was the only one to see a drop in sales: 0.9 percent down on the 2020 figures.
Among the top five companies — Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics — only Raytheon recorded an increase in sales.
Meanwhile, sales from the eight largest Chinese arms companies rose 6.3 percent to $109 billion in 2021.
European companies took 27 of the spots on the top 100, with combined sales of $123 billion, up 4.2 percent compared to 2020.
The report also noted a trend of private equity firms buying up arms companies, something the authors said had become increasingly apparent over the last three or four years.
This trend threatens to make the arms industry more opaque and therefore harder to track, Tian said, “because private equity firms will buy these companies and then essentially not produce any more financial records.”
Growth in arms trade stunted by supply issues: report
https://arab.news/pt2nb
Growth in arms trade stunted by supply issues: report
- The growth was severely impacted by widespread supply chain issues
- Companies in the US continue to dominate global arms production
‘I admire Vision 2030’: Bangladesh’s new PM aims for stronger Saudi, GCC ties
- Saudi Arabia congratulates Tarique Rahman on assuming Bangladesh’s top office
- Relations between Bangladesh and Kingdom were formalized during his father’s rule
DHAKA: After 17 years in exile, Tarique Rahman has taken office as prime minister of Bangladesh, inheriting his parents’ political legacy and facing immediate economic and political challenges.
Rahman led his Bangladesh Nationalist Party to a landslide victory in the Feb. 12 general election, winning an absolute majority with 209 of 300 parliamentary seats and marking the party’s return to power after two decades.
The BNP was founded by his father, former President Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero. After his assassination in 1981, Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, took over the party’s helm and served two full terms as prime minister — in 1991 and 2001.
Rahman and his cabinet, whose members were sworn in alongside him on Tuesday, take over from an interim administration which governed Bangladesh for 18 months after former premier Sheikh Hasina — the BNP’s archrival who ruled consecutively for 15 years — was toppled in the 2024 student-led uprising.
As he begins his term, the new prime minister’s first tasks will be to rebuild the economy — weakened by uncertainty during the interim administration — and to restore political stability. Relations with the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and other GCC states, are also high on his agenda.
“Saudi Arabia is one of our long-standing friends,” Rahman told Arab News at his office in Dhaka, two days before his historic election win.
“I admire the Saudi Vision 2030, and I am sincerely looking forward to working with the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. BNP always had a great relationship with the Muslim world, especially GCC nations — UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman — and I look forward to working closely with GCC countries and their leadership to build a long-term trusting partnership with mutual interest,” Rahman said.
The Saudi government congratulated him on assuming the top office on Tuesday, wishing prosperity to the Bangladeshi people.
Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia established formal diplomatic relations in August 1975, and the first Bangladeshi ambassador presented his credentials in late 1976, after Rahman’s father rose to power. That year, Bangladesh also started sending laborers, engineers, doctors, and teachers to work in the Kingdom.
Today, more than 3 million Bangladeshis live and work in Saudi Arabia — the largest expat group in the Kingdom and the biggest Bangladeshi community outside the country.
“I recall that when my father, President Ziaur Rahman, was in office, bilateral relations between our two nations were initiated,” Rahman said. “During the tenure of my mother, the late Begum Khaleda Zia, as prime minister, those relations became even stronger.”
Over the decades, Saudi Arabia has not only emerged as the main destination for Bangladesh’s migrant workers but also one of its largest development and emergency aid donors.
Weeks after Rahman’s mother began her first term as prime minister in 1991, Bangladesh was struck by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in its history. Riyadh was among the first who offered assistance, and Zia visited Saudi Arabia on her earliest foreign tour and performed Hajj in June 1991.
For Rahman, who had been living in London since 2008 and returned to Bangladesh in December — just days before his mother’s death — the Kingdom will also be one of the first countries he plans to visit.
“I would definitely like to visit Saudi Arabia early in my term,” he said. “Personally, I also wish to visit the holy mosque, Al-Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah, to perform Umrah.”
