Morocco and Algeria remain among the biggest spenders in Africa, despite a drop in arms imports. This is what the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reveals in a new report on global military spending in 2022, published this Monday, March 13, 2023. Indeed, the report points to a decline in arms imports of these two largest importers in the region, noting that imports, over the period between 2013-2017 and 2018-2022, have fallen by 20% for Morocco and 58% for Algeria. A decline that explains, according to the document, the fall in imports of major weapons by African states (40%).
Morocco ranks 29th in the ranking of the 40 largest importers of major weapons and their main suppliers between 2018 and 2022, with a share of global arms imports amounting to 0.8% between 2018 and 2022, against 1.1% for the period between 2013 and 2017. As usual, the United States remained the leading supplier of arms to Morocco, with a share of 76%, ahead of France (15%) and China (6.8%).
For their part, major arms imports by European states increased by 47, while the overall volume of international arms transfers decreased by 5.1%, during the same period.
