Four Indian PSUs Among World’s Top 100 Arm Producers In SIPRI List, Top Ten Dominated By USA

According to the latest rankings released by a Stockholm-based think tank, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), four Indian companies, all PSUs, have been featured on the world’s top 100 arms producers in 2017, reports The Economic Times.

The four PSU’s with their corresponding ranks and percentage growth since 2016 are as follows

• Indian Ordnance Factories at 37th position with 8.5 per cent growth
• Hindustan Aeronautics at 38th position with 0.9 per cent decline
• Bharat Electronics at 64th position with 12 per cent growth
• Bharat Dynamics at 94th position with 13 per cent growth
  

The arms sales of the four state-owned companies in India, totalled $ 7.52 billion in 2017, which is 6.1 per cent higher than the previous year. The total arms sales of all the 100 arms-producers (excluding Chinese arms-producers) in the list comes up to an estimated $ 398.2 billion, which is a 2.2 per cent increase from the sales of the previous year and shows a third consecutive year of growth.

Despite collecting information on several major firms, Chinese companies were not covered by SIPRI due to the lack of reliable data. It is estimated that three Chinese arms-manufacturers would break into the top 10 in the list. Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) which totalled an estimated $ 20.1 billion in arms sales is China’s most successful arms producer followed by NORINCO ($17.2 billion) and CETC ($12.2 billion). Leaving aside these three companies, at least seven others would probably be in the top 100, says SIPRI.