According to the March 2023 report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), India still is the world’s largest arms importer of military equipment in the world accounting for 11% of the total global arms imports between 2018 and 2022. However, it is also to be noted that India’s share of 11% is down from 12% in the 2013-17 period. Further, The Russia remains the largest arms supplier to India in the periods between 2013-17 and 2018-22, though its share of arms imports to India fell from 64% to 45% while France accounted 29% of the total imports to India thereby becoming the second-largest arms supplier to India between 2018-22, followed by the US at 11%. Beside these countries, India also imported arms from Israel, South Korea, and South Africa during this five-year period.
Besides India, Saudi Arabia (9.6%), Qatar (6.4%), Australia (4.7%) and China (4.7%) are the other 4 top arms importer in terms of procurement of foreign defence equipment during the mentioned period. On the other hand, the top 5 arms exporters during this period were the US (40%), Russia (16%), France (11%), China (5.2%), Germany (4.2%).
Source: https://www.sipri.org/
