Domestic

Domestic

Azerbaijan is word leader for military budgetâ€™s growth

12 June 2007 13:32 (UTC +04:00)

Pentagon spent $528 billion in 2006. The growth in defense expenditures of the US is connected with military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Britain, France, China and Japan come after for military expenditure used for armaments and military technologies.
Russia spent $34.7 million on arm purchase in 2006. The main arm importers became China and India in 2006. The US and Russia were main arm exporters in the same year. Five main arm exporters of 10 majors are Middle East states. The arm purchase increased three percent in the past one year. SIPRI analytics say that though world press stressed the fact of Russiaâ€˜s selling arms to Iran it is ignored that US and Europe has sold much arms to Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. In early 2007, US Russia, France, Great Britain and China had 26 thousand nuclear heads.
According to SIPRI, Azerbaijan and Belarus hold first two places for the increase of defense expenditures. Azerbaijanâ€™s budget increased by 82 percent and Belarus increased its budget by 56 percent last year. Russiaâ€™s military expenditures have increased by 155 percent since 1998.
In 2005-2006, the biggest military budget growth was recorded in Eastern Europe. The general growth in this region was 12 percent. According to expertsâ€™ evaluations, in 2006 more than $900 billion was spent for military purposes. It means euro 137 for every soil in the world. The general military budget of world states increased by 37 percent and reached 1.2 trillion. The US leads the list of states for military budget. This country spent $ 505 billion and $529 billion correspondingly in 2005 and in 2006./APA/