Next to Drugs trafficking,Illegal Arms trafficking is the Highest Industry in The World.
Facts;
Drug Trafficking. $ 32 Billion
Arms Trafficking $15.5 Billion
As early as in 1970 there existed one fire arms for every man , woman and child living n the planet.
Let’s see how the illegal Arms Trade operates.
Every nation has an Arms industry for its Defense.
The Investment for a normal Rifles, Machine Guns , Hand Guns,Ammunition for both and Grenades is not relatively high.
Every Country has them,barring a few.
But mere Guns and ammunition for them will no be enough to defend one country.
One has to have Tanks,Artillery, Armored Cars, and Warships.
In addition one has to have Research facilities as well.
One should have technology and the Investment capacity to produce them.
Smaller countries do not manufacture them and they import from the Countries that develop these arms.
How do these smaller get them?
In Theory there is a ban on export of Arms.
At the practical level, as the investment is huge for these Industries and you can not afford to keep them idle, they are continued to be manufactured.
But the requirement for the Country’s consumption is limited.
Continuous production implies additional investments, that too ,on a large-scale is required.
So the countries that manufacture Arms, export, though paying lip service to” Ban of Arms exports’.
Main Arms Suppliers are :US,Canada,Britain,France,Italy,West Germany(with certain banned manufactures under 1954 Paris Treaty,Sweden,Switzerland, Spain,Belgium, Israel and South Africa.
Of these Western nations, Sweden and Switzerland are neutral Countries, bu still they make finest Weapons.
Israel and South Africa, unsure of their stand in the world of Importing Arms because of their peculiar political situations , have their own Industries.
The other countries are linked by NATO Treaty.
The mutual export and Import is not a problem for them.
Smaller countries requiring import from any of these countries have to get cleared by the War Office and the foreign Office of the respective countries they want to import from.
Major West European Suppliers.
The four major West European suppliers (France, United Kingdom, Germany,
and Italy), as a group, registered a significant increase in their collective share of all
arms transfer agreements with developing nations between 2003 and 2004. This
group’s share rose from 5.5% in 2003 to 22% in 2004. The collective value of this
group’s arms transfer agreements with developing nations in 2004 was $4.8 billion
compared with a total of $830 million in 2003. Of these four nations, the United
Kingdom was the leading supplier with $3.2 billion in agreements in 2004, a
substantial increase from essentially no agreements in 2003. An important portion
of the United Kingdom’s total in 2004 was attributable to a $1.8 billion agreement
with India for 66 Hawk advanced jet trainers, and a large agreement totaling in
excess of $1 billion with Saudi Arabia under the Al Yamamah military procurement
arrangement. France increased its agreements total to $1 billion in 2004from $519
million in 2003, aided by a contract to provide support for Saudi Arabia’s Crotale air
defense systems, and Shahine ground-to-air missiles for about $410 million. Italy
increased its arms transfer agreements with the developing world from $311 million
in 2003 to $600 million in 2004. Germany registered effectively no new developing
world arms orders in 2004. (charts 3 and 4)(tables 1A and 1B).
http://www.fas.org/asmp/resources/govern/109th/CRSRL33051.pdf
Contiues.
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