Arms exports, who goes up and who goes down. Sipri Report
What emerges from the annual survey by the Sipri think tank dedicated to Trends in International Arms Transfers 2020. Il Punto di Pietro Romano
Italy loses two positions in the ranking of the protagonists of the international trade of weapons and defense systems, falling from eighth to tenth place. This was revealed by Sipri , a Stockholm-based think tank among the two or three most accredited in the world on the subject, in the annual survey dedicated to “Trends in International Arms Transfers 2020”. The study, released today, photographs the volume of transfers in the years 2016/2020 compared to the same figure of the previous four years. At a macro level, in the last four years, it has recorded an overall decrease of 0.5%, however, archiving a + 12% compared to the 2006/2010 period.
USE MORE AND MORE LEADERS
Turning to the results by country, the United States of America is confirmed as the world's leading exporter, with 37% of the market, against 32% in 2011/2015. The presidency of Donald Trump has led to a relative growth of 15% compared to the second four years of Barack Obama, who, however, for his part had recorded a sound + 24% in sales of US arms to the rest of the world in the years spent in the White House.
THE TOP TEN
Behind Washington, to make up the "top ten", in order follow Russia, France, Germany, China, United Kingdom, Spain, Israel, South Korea and Italy. However, Russia drops from 26 to 20% of the world market, suffering a decline of 22%. Proportionately the same slip as in Italy, which increased its share of international trade from 2.8 to 2.2%. The United Kingdom is worse off, stopping at 3.3% or -27% compared to the previous four-year period. Spain also fell significantly (-8.4% to 3.2% of the global level) and China (-7.8% and 5.2%), although we are not willing to swear by Beijing's data.
FROM SEUL TO PARIS, WHAT A BOUNCE!
On the opposite side of the "best performers", it is certainly South Korea that amazes. With a + 210% four years over four years, the global incidence of Seoul triples going from 0.9% to 2.7%. Behind South Korea for relative growth is Israel: + 59% compared to a jump from 1.9 to 3%. These last two countries overtake Italy in the "top ten". Particularly significant is the result of France. Paris is now worth 8.2% of the rich market against 5.6% four years ago, with a relative increase of 44%. Germany also closed the comparison in positive, growing from 4.5 to 5.5% worldwide (+ 21%). Out of the top ten, among the remaining 15 countries in the ranking, which is limited to 25 exporters worthy of the name, the data of India (+ 228%), Brazil (147%) and Australia (+ 81%) are remarkable. however, all together they stop at one percent of the world market.
ITALY DISASTER
Continuing at this pace, in a short time our country is destined to emerge from the "top ten" of international "players". A result that will delight the national “pacifondai” but is destined to have strong repercussions on the sector and above all on the highly qualified employment of the sector. With negative consequences on innovation in a broad sense: without exports there are no investments but investments mostly have a dual effect, that is to say they allow innovation that is also useful for civil production, as demonstrated by the results of countries at the forefront of innovation. All the innovation.
As for candid souls: if Italy does not sell these systems, others will sell them. And in any case, the most heinous massacres in the wars currently waged are carried out by rudimentary armaments or produced directly in the least developed countries, not by Western states, which a series of rules are required to respect. And, as far as Italy is concerned, they generally respect them.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/export-armi-chi-sale-e-chi-scende-report-sipri/ on Mon, 15 Mar 2021 13:58:03 +0000.