Sudan, Ivory Coast named major importers of Belarus’ weapons in 2003 :: Charter'97 :: News

The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has identified Sudan and Ivory Coast as major customers purchasing Belarusian weapons and military equipment in 2003. According to the data sent to the UN Register of Conventional Arms, Sudan imported from Belarus nine BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, 39 BRDM-2 armored reconnaissance vehicles, 16 D-30 howitzer guns, 10 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers and six Grad multiple rocket launchers of two different versions.

Ivory Coast bought a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, 13 BRDM-2s, six BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, six BM-21 Grads, 10 BM-37 mortars and two Su-25 trainer jets.
In addition, Belarus supplied Sweden with four missiles for mobile Igla-1 anti-aircraft systems.
No information about the amounts of the arms export contracts was released.

As Andrei Savinykh, spokesman for the Belarusian foreign ministry, told BelaPAN, the ministry has sent information about its arms exports to the UN Conventional Arms Register since 1993.
Vyacheslav Sheida, head of the marketing department of the Beltechexport company, expressed hope at late December’s news conference that Belarus would not drop from the top 20 arms exporters this year.

Belarus dropped from the world’s top 10 arms exporters after 1999, mainly because of shrinking weapons stockpiles, according to the executive.