Dealers predict that “Putin is the best arms dealer in the world”: arms sales will rise again in 2023

With the war in Ukraine, Europe has reached a turning point. For years, peace seemed a given, but now the continent is dramatically increasing its military spending.

in the newsLast week, IDEX Defense Exhibition was held in Abu Dhabi.

• In this edition, the exhibition attracted more than 130,000 visitors from 65 countries. In addition, more than 1,350 exhibitors attended.
• according to CNBC This year’s edition was the largest and most popular of all time.
• According to experts, such a show is an indicator of the health of the sector: the more exhibitors and visitors, the greater the interest in the sector.

Putin is the best arms dealer

the most important: The war in Ukraine is the reason for the renewed interest in weapons.

• From our point of view, Putin is the best arms dealer of all. “If the fight hadn’t started, no one would be buying all this stuff,” a representative of an unnamed US company told the stock exchange. CNBC.
• “Very good work, alas,” confirmed another French seller of war materials.
• A year ago, on February 24, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine. Since then, the situation on the European continent has changed in many ways.
  • It awakened Europe, which took peace for granted. Many European countries, including Belgium, are increasing their defense budgets in order to meet or exceed NATO’s target of 2% of GDP faster than expected.
  • The West also supplies Ukraine with many weapons, which also need to be renewed.

Numbers: Europe pulls out the purse.

• Germany It decided to add 100 billion euros to its defense budget. It is the first major increase of this magnitude for the country since World War II.
• also Belgium The portfolio attracts as much as possible: an additional 1 billion euros will be made available. However, it will take years for our country to reach 2 percent of GDP.
• Poland In turn, it increases the defense budget to 3% of GDP by 2023.
• also France It is accelerating: a budget of 400 billion euros will be available for the period 2024-2030.
• And also a turning point Japan. For many years, Tokyo kept military spending to a minimum. But between now and 2027, defense spending will double (from 1 to 2 percent of GDP). The reason: tensions with North Korea and China.
• also Russia I can’t stay behind. Spending will be greatly increased, to $84 billion in 2023, or a 40 percent increase.
• In short, all these numbers show that military spending will increase dramatically in the coming years.
  • This comes after a year of already sky-high defense spending: more than $2,000 billion in total, worldwide, according to preliminary estimates. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the best known for this kind of data, publishes its annual report in April.

Big winners: Uncle Sam Arms Dealers.

• Arms sales by US companies to foreign countries jumped by nearly half last year, to $200 billion.
• In the fourth quarter of 2022, arms giant Lockheed Martin sold $19 billion worth of weapons (for nearly $2 billion in profits). It’s a significant increase from the $17 billion in the same period a year earlier. For the full year, sales totaled $66 billion, and profits nearly $6 billion.
• Another major group, Raytheon, also had good sales: $4 billion in the last quarter for its weapons division (up 6%). The company also notes that its order book is nearly full, with $69 billion in orders in the pipeline at the end of last year.

(fjc)