India second largest arms importer after Ukraine: SIPRI report

Stating that India’s tensions with China and Pakistan largely drive its arms imports — which are now increasingly shifting towards western suppliers — the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has listed the country as the world’s second largest arms importer after war-torn Ukraine.

“India was the world’s second largest arms importer in 2020-24 with an 8.3 per cent share of global imports. Indian arms imports decreased by 9.3 per cent between 2015-19 and 2020-24,” SIPRI’s report on Trends in International Arms Transfers-2024, released on Monday, stated. Ukraine topped the charts with 8.8 per cent, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia trailed India with a 6.8 per cent share each in global imports.

The drop was at least partly the result of India’s increasing ability to design and produce its own weapons, making it less reliant on imports,” SIPRI said. The largest share of India’s imports came from Russia, accounting for 36 per cent of the imports, though this was a significantly smaller share compared to 55 per cent in 2015-19 and 72 per cent in 2010-14.

India is shifting its arms-supply relations towards Western suppliers — most notably France, Israel and the US. Despite recent public declarations from the two sides that relations between India and Russia remain friendly, the shift is also visible in India’s new and planned orders for major arms, most of which will come from Western suppliers,” SIPRI observed.

India is the top weapons client for France, Israel and Russia. France’s exports to India were 28 of its total weapons exports, followed by Qatar with 9.7 per cent and Greece with 8.3 per cent. Israel’s export to India accounted for 34 per cent of its exports, US 13 per cent and Philippines 8.1 per cent, while Russia’s exports to India were 38 per cent of its total weapons export, to China 17 per cent and Kazakhstan 11 per cent.

SIPRI noted that though arms imports by states in Asia and Oceania dropped by 21 per cent between 2015-19 and 2020-24, it remains the region with the highest volume of arms imports, accounting for 33 per cent of the global total trends in international arms transfers in 2020-24. The declining trend is mainly because of a sharp decrease in Chinese arms imports.

Four of the world’s 10 largest arms importers in the period were in Asia and Oceania — which included India, Pakistan, Japan and Australia. The main suppliers to the region were the US, accounting for 37 per cent of regional arms imports, Russia with 17 per cent and China with 14 per cent.

SIPRI observed that Pakistan’s arms imports increased by 61 per cent between 2015-19 and 2020-24 as it started to receive deliveries — including of combat aircraft and frigates — under a large-scale arms procurement programme. Pakistan accounted for 4.6 per cent of global arms imports in 2020–24, making it the world’s fifth largest arms importer.

China has supplied the largest share of Pakistan’s major arms imports in all five-year periods since 1990-94 and this share has continued to grow. China supplied 81 per cent of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2020-24, compared with 74 per cent in 2015-19, the report said. Netherlands supplies 5.5 per cent and Türkiye 3.8 per cent.

China has been listed at the 16th spot in the pecking order amongst importers, accounting for just 1.8 per cent of the world’s weapons imports — a huge drop by 64 per cent from the 2015-2019 period. Russia was its top supplier with a 72 per cent share, followed by France with 13 per cent and Ukraine 12 per cent.

China was not among the world’s top 10 arms importers for the first time since 1990-94, SIPRI observed. “China’s increasing ability to design and produce its own major arms means that it is far less reliant on arms imports than it was previously. Its arms imports will probably decrease further as the capacity of its domestic arms industry grows,” the report said.

SIPRI also pointed out that in the South China Sea, a geopolitical hotspot, Taiwan’s arms imports decreased by 27 per cent between 2015-19 and 2020-24, despite a significant increase in tensions with China. “Planned deliveries of major arms to Taiwan over the next five years, almost all of which will come from the US, are relatively limited in scale compared with China’s ongoing military build-up or the volumes of arms being imported by other major US allies in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea,” SIPRI said.

The five largest arms exporters in 2020-24 were the US, accounting for 43 per cent of the total exports, France (9.6 per cent), Russia (7.8 per cent), China (5.9 per cent) and Germany (5.6 per cent). Arms exports by the US went up by 21 per cent between 2015-19 and 2020-24, while those by Russia went down by 64 per cent. France’s arms exports increased by 11 per cent.