Saudi, UAE Defense Arms Imports Surpass those of Western Europe

The combined value of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates’ defense imports is more than Western Europe’s entire defense imports combined, a defense analyst says.

Ben Moores, a senior defense analyst at IHS Inc. added that “Saudi Arabia’s imports grew from six billion US dollars to 9.3 billion US dollars, an increase that is three times that of the entire sub-Saharan Africa market.”

The consulting company, IHS Inc., in its Global Defense Trade Report published Sunday noted that arms imports by the Persian Gulf region’s Arab monarchy jumped from USD 6 billion in 2014 to USD 9.3 billion in 2015.

According to Ben Moores, a senior defense analyst at IHS who wrote the report, Saudi Arabia’s weapons purchases last year included Eurofighter Typhoon jets, F-15 warplanes and Apache helicopters, as well as precision-guided weapons, drones and surveillance equipment.

The report, which examines the defense market across 65 countries, said the arms market jumped to USD 65 billion in 2015, up by USD 6.6 billion from 2014, and is expected to hit USD 69 billion in 2016. That’s the largest yearly increase in the past decade, according to the Englewood, Colorado-based company. While Saudi purchases jumped about 50 percent, growth was seen across much of the West Asia region and Southeast Asia.

The boost in Saudi weapons imports came as the kingdom led a brutal Arab coalition involved in an illegal aggression on Yemen. The Saudi regime has also seen an upsurge of arms purchases due to its policies of spreading Iranophobia.

Moores noted that the United States, Britain and some other Western countries have largely benefited from the arms exports to the troubled West Asia region.