The Year of Armament-GERMANY & FRANCE

2008 - The Year of Armament-GERMANY & FRANCE
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Fri, 11/16/2007
2008 - The Year of Armament
2007/11/08
BERLIN/BRUSSELS(Own Report) -
The German arms industry was able
to consolidate its leadership position
among European producers with its new billions of Euros worth of exports
in military hardware.
According to the "Arms Exports Report 2006" of the German Ministry of Economics and Technology,
Germany granted export licenses valued at 4.2 billion Euros.
Again among the prospective recipients of German military products are nations in warfare and crisis zones,
among them Iraq (export volume 10 million Euros),
Saudi Arabia (57 million Euros) and
Pakistan (135 million Euros).
The exports offensive is accompanied by influential measures at the EU level, intended to insure more contracts
within Europe for the German arms industry. Berlin has been able to impose the former Defense Ministry's "director of the Arms Sector" as the new chief executive of the European Defence Agency, EDA. The efforts of German corporations to outdo their European rivals in military hardware production, is having a worldwide effect. Today EU nations are exporting, as much military hardware as the USA and Russia and are thereby significantly contributing to the global increase in the arms trade.

Business Explosion

Following the arms industry's relatively low-tide period during the direct aftermath of the East-West conflict, the military expenditures rose significantly since 1998. Worldwide expenditures for military hardware rose 37 percent over the past decade.[1] The main beneficiaries were arms industries of the states of the European Union, which is portrayed as the alleged civilian counterpart to the USA. In the five years between 2002 - 2006, the EU states, together, accounted for 30 percent of all weapons exports in the world, equaling the previously biggest exporters, the USA and Russia, each furnishing approx. 30 percent of the worlds arms markets.[2] In 2005, with the sale of $7.8 billion in military equipment, the EU arms sales surpassed for the first time those of its two rivals, to become the world's biggest arms exporter. The leading dealers were the key powers, France ($2.4 billion) and Germany ($1.85 billion).[3] In the global comparison of the five years (2002 - 2006), with arms exports valued at $9.2 billion, Germany pushed its way up to third place among the worlds arms dealers, bypassing

France ($8.9 billion).

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