Belarus trading in arms with 50 states
- 9.04.2008, 15:23
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus has issued a National Report on the Policies of Export Control, Export of Armaments and Military Materiel in 2007.”
The Belarusian MFA has been preparing reports on export of armaments and military materiel since 2002. At first the reports contained the list of countries, where Belarusian arms were sold to, and tables with types and amount of sold armaments. This report only informs that Belarus traded in arms with 50 states, and exporters were 82 Belarusian firms and organisations. 8 new exporting firms have appeared last year, 250 licences for import and export of armaments were issued, Radio Svaboda reports.
Right to export agreements and military materiel, which earlier the state (including military units) has, was transferred to three companies: Belspetsvneshtekhnika, Belvneshpromservis and Beltechexport.
According to the information, published by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, Belarus sold arms of 1 billion dollars in 1998-2001 and took 11th rank in the world in this sphere. Belarus was in the list of 20 most active arms dealers three years ago. Belarus officially sold airplanes, helicopters, armoured trucks, tanks and other materiel to Iran, Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire, Peru, and Uganda.
The structure of Belarusian export has changed. Firstly, Belarus no longer has heavy equipment, produced in the USSR, and secondly, demand on other military goods and service has increased in the world. Military expert Alyaksandr Alesin said:
“Belarus’s specialisation at the world armament market is supplies of automatic air-defence and aviation control systems, turret control systems, artillery and other. Radars are often spoken about, too.”
According to Mr Alesin, Belarus actively modernise its military equipment, sells dual-purpose technologies. Alyaksandr Alesin appraised volume of Belarusian military export at 300 million dollars. He has no official information on this subject.
Last year Belarus signed up some military and technical contracts with Venezuelan at a total sum of 1 billion dollars. These contracts will allow to give work for Belarusian military-industrial complex for some years. The Belarusian party is to sell Venezuela air defence facilities, automatic control systems, electronic warfare.