The United States continues to hold the title of the world’s top weapons exporter, supplying almost $23 billion worth of weapons to other countries last year – particularly in the Middle East – according to a new report by IHS Jane's.
Its annual Global Defense Trade Report released on Sunday showed the global defense market rose by $6.6 billion in 2015, up to a total of $65 billion.
“The global defense trade market has never seen an increase as large as the one we saw between 2014 and 2015,” said Ben Moores, senior analyst at IHS. “2015 was a record-breaking year.”
French arms sales more than doubled in 2015 from the year before, rising from $8 billion to $18 billion. If that rate continues, the report said, France will overtake Russia as the second largest defense exporter by 2018.
The increase in global arms sales last year was driven largely by increased demand from countries in the Middle East, which dominated the top of the list and received around $21.6 billion worth of equipment deliveries, including $8.8 billion from the U.S.