The SIPRI places Algeria in the top 10 of the major arms purchasers in the world

SIPRI, the Research Institute for Peace, based in Stockholm, has just published a report on the world arms trade, in which it points at armaments race in which are indulged, with billions of dollars, countries that have yet major development needs. The report mentions Algeria, which is placed henceforth in the Top 10 of the biggest arms purchasers in the world. (See Russian arms purchased by Algeria).
Algeria has thus been classified as the 9th biggest arms importer in the world during the 2005-2009-period and the 2nd on the Arab level after the United Arab Emirates. In Africa, Algeria has monopolized by itself 43% of the Continent imports, followed by South Africa (18%).
This armaments race is less comprehensible, explains the SIPRI, as it concerns countries where funds devoted to arms acquisitions would have been better served to development programs to improve people’s precarious life conditions.

The SIPRI denounces this drift where « States rich with natural resources have purchased important quantities of warplanes at high prices. As a reaction, “the neighboring countries have reacted to these acquisitions by placing an order on their turn”, explains the report. The United States and Russia are evidently the two main armaments suppliers in the world, successively followed by Germany, France and Great Britain, specifies the SIPRI.
Hereafter, a selection of the main Russian armaments exports towards countries of North Africa between 2000 and 2009.