A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on worldwide weapons sales to developing nations says the US was the top arms supplier in 1993. The annual report, entitled "Conventional Arms Transfers to the Third World, 1986-1993", was released on August 2 and showed that US arms transfer agreements with Third World countries were valued at more than $14.8 billion last year, an increase of $200 million over 1992 totals.
According to CRS, the US surpassed its competitors by a "substantial" margin, controlling over 72% of the arms market, up from 56% in 1992.
The United Kingdom and Russia, ranked a distant second and third respectively; each had sales approaching $1.8 billion.
CRS said 1993 was the fourth year in a row the US led the world in sales to developing countries. The largest Pentagon customers were Saudi Arabia with purchases of $9.5 billion, and Kuwait, which bought $2.2 billion.
Saudi Arabia was the Third World's largest weapons buyer in 1993, with total purchases valued at $9.6 billion. Kuwait ranked second with weapons acquisitions of $3.4 billion, and China was third with $1.3 billion. South Korea and Malaysia rounded out the top five positions at $1.1 billion and $600 million respectively.
The CRS study, commonly known as the "Grimmett report" after its author Richard F. Grimmett, showed that developing nations bought most of the world's weapons last year, purchasing 64% of the $31.8 billion in total sales.
In its analysis of the post-Cold War weapons trade, CRS said lower US defence budgets "have placed continuing pressures on arms industries to seek foreign weapons contracts to replace" domestic sales.
Russia has not been able to match the US sales effort because many of its former clients cannot afford to pay for weapons with hard currency.
At a briefing for reporters, Grimmett said total US sales agreements last year were valued at more than $22 billion. The US controls the largest share of the Near East arms market, the Third World market and the total world market.
Grimmett said the overall trend is toward continued lower arms sales. The CRS report shows that since 1988, total worldwide and Third World arms sales have been declining steadily. Total sales in 1988 were valued at more than $81 billion while last year sales were less than $32 billion. Third World purchases slipped from over $61 billion in 1988 to slightly more than $20 billion last year.
[Abridged from Arms Trade News (US).]