2023-07-26 15:29:27
A record broken, by far. According to the report to Parliament on arms exports, revealed by the Tribune and which Challenges also obtained a copy, in 2022 France broke its historic record for orders for military equipment for export. The figure, 26.973 billion euros exactly, is 60% higher than the previous record, 16.9 billion euros in 2015. It is even more than twice that of 2021 (11.7 billion euros), which was already a very good vintage. “French armament is not only appreciated through the Rafale, which with its armaments contributes very largely to this figure, writes the Minister of the Armies Sébastien Lecornu in the preamble of the document. It imposes itself as a world reference in a wide spectrum of capabilities: missiles, frigates, submarines, artillery, helicopters, radars, observation satellites.”
With this figure, France stands out as the world’s second largest arms exporter. In August 2022, Alexander Mikheyev, the managing director of Rosoboronexport, the Russian arms export structure, estimated Moscow’s 2022 sales at
A record broken, by far. According to the report to Parliament on arms exports, revealed by the Tribune and which Challenges also obtained a copy, in 2022 France broke its historic record for orders for military equipment for export. The figure, 26.973 billion euros exactly, is 60% higher than the previous record, 16.9 billion euros in 2015. It is even more than twice that of 2021 (11.7 billion euros), which was already a very good vintage. “French armament is not only appreciated through the Rafale, which with its armaments contributes very largely to this figure, writes the Minister of the Armies Sébastien Lecornu in the preamble of the document. It imposes itself as a world reference in a wide spectrum of capabilities: missiles, frigates, submarines, artillery, helicopters, radars, observation satellites.”
With this figure, France stands out as the world’s second largest arms exporter. In August 2022, Alexander Mikheyev, the managing director of Rosoboronexport, the Russian arms export structure, estimated Moscow’s 2022 sales at $10.8 billion. France is therefore more than twice as good. In the Swedish think tank Sipri’s latest report on arms exports, Paris was number three in the world over the period 2018-2022, with 11% market share, compared to 40% for the United States and 16% for Russia. But the French figure was up 44% when that of Moscow fell by 31%.
Russia in freefall
Moscow even seems to have been overtaken by South Korea (17.3 billion dollars) and Israel, which claims $12.5 billion in arms exports in 2022. UK announces 8.5 billion pounds of contracts (9.9 billion euros). Germany achieved approximately 8.9 billion euros in export sales. The United States remains on another planet: according to the State Department, American arms sales reached 153.2 billion dollars in 2022, a figure up 26% compared to 2021.
The world’s Top-5 arms sellers in 2022, according to data from different countries consolidated by Challenges, therefore appears to be the following: United States, France, South Korea, Israel, United Kingdom. Russia and Germany follow, with very close figures.
How to explain the French record figure? The contract for 80 Rafale with the United Arab Emirates, signed in December 2021 but coming into force in 2022, is obviously the main factor, with an amount of around 16 billion euros. Two other Rafale contracts also played out, in Greece (6 planes) and in Indonesia (6 planes as well). “The year 2022 was also marked by the contract for the acquisition of three defense and intervention frigates (FDI) by Greece, as well as their maintenance and the associated armaments, indicates the report to Parliament. In Europe too, Poland signed a contract for the acquisition of two French observation satellites in December 2022.”
The Middle East first customer
The Middle East remains, by far, the leading customer for French shipping. “The Near and Middle East zone recorded 64% of the total, the Europe zone maintained a significant level of 23%, followed by the Asia zone with 8% of order intake”, specifies the report. France’s top four customers in 2022 were the United Arab Emirates (€16.9 billion), Greece (3.9 billion), Indonesia (1.09 billion) and Poland (668 million) .
And Ukraine? kyiv ordered 118 million euros in equipment in 2022, and France delivered 640.5 million euros in equipment. According to France’s annual report under article 13.3 of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), included in the report to Parliament, Paris notably delivered 60 armored vehicles, 2 artillery systems, 39 155mm guns (including 15 given free), 10 120mm mortars, 118 missiles and missile launchers, 704 missile launchers and -portable rockets. Paris also donated 562 12.7mm machine guns and 34 7.62mm machine guns.
On the delivery side, the 2022 figure is down compared to 2021, with 7.6 billion euros of equipment delivered once morest 11.1 billion. This drop corresponds to that of Rafale deliveries (25 in 2021, 14 in 2022). In a separate report, written by Bercy and consulted by Challengesthe government also revealed to Parliament the amount of exports of so-called dual-use goods (civilian and military) in 2022. Export licenses reached 8.8 billion euros, down 2% compared to 2021 .
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