Ukraine dislodges India as leading arms importer

New Delhi: After years of leading the global list of arms importers, India has been replaced by Ukraine in the top slot as a consequence of the ongoing conflict with Russia, according to the latest report from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that keeps track of arms sales around the world.

With its imports reflecting perceived threats from both China and Pakistan, India was the world’s second largest arms importer between 2015–19 and 2020–24, says the SIPRI report released on Monday.

New Delhi’s arms import dipped by 9.3 per cent in the wake of the Centre putting more focus on indigenous production with the report noting that “the drop was at least partly the result of India’s increasing ability to design and produce its own weapons, making it less reliant on imports.

”For the first time, China is not among the top ten importers as the communist country replaced a big part of its weaponry with home-grown products."

Some major arms importers, including Saudi Arabia, India and China, saw large declines in import volumes for a variety of reasons, despite high threat perceptions in their regions," said Mathew George, programme director with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.

Between 2020-24, the five largest arms importers were Ukraine (8.8%), India (8.3), Qatar (6.8), Saudi Arabia (6.8) and Pakistan (4.6) whereas the five largest exporters were the USA, France, Russia, China and Germany. The biggest share of French arms exports went to India (28%), which was almost twice the share that went to European recipient states combined (15%).

The SIPRI report shows considerable decline in Moscow’s arms sale and the southward journey began before the Ukraine war. Arms exports by Russia dropped by 64% between 2015–19 and 2020–24.

Currently Russia accounts for 7.8% of global arms exports, largely as a result of a decrease in orders from China and India.China accounted for 5.9% of global arms exports in 2020–24 and almost two thirds of its arms exports (63%) went to just one country: Pakistan. India’s three biggest suppliers are Russia (36%), France (33%) and Israel (13%). But Russia’s share was a significantly smaller one when compared to the supply in 2015–19 (55%) and 2010–14 (72%).

India is shifting its arms supply relations towards Western suppliers, most notably France, Israel and the USA, the SIPRI report notes. Despite recent public declarations from the two sides that relations between India and Russia remain friendly, the shift is visible in India’s new and planned orders for major arms, most of which will come from Western suppliers.

The new analysis comes at a time when India’s defence production target is likely to touch Rs 1.6 lakh crore in the next fiscal with an export target of Rs 30,000 crore. Also Defence minister Rajnath Singh has set a defence export target of Rs 50,000 crore by 2029. India currently is not among the world’s top 25 arms exporters with the USA (43%) topping the list followed by France (9.6%) and Russia (7.8%).The USA’s total share in the global arms sale in 2020-24 is almost the same as the next eight countries put together in the SIPRI list.