Belarus Remains In Top Twenty Of Arms Exporters :: Charter'97 :: News

Foreign Ministry of Belarus has published “National Report on Export Control Policy, Weapons and Military Equipment Export in 2003-2004”. Unlike the previous report, there is no information about the countries to which the Belarusian military equipment was sold. There is no information about types of the equipment and volumes of trade.

The new report is much less detailed, there too little new information in it, the Belarusian military expert Alyaksandr Alesin told. In fact, the report has information only about normative acts in the field of licensing and armaments export control. More information was submitted to the UN to the Register on Common Armaments, where according to the results of the year 2003 Sudan and Cote d’Ivoire were named among the importers of the Belarusian weapons.

Meanwhile, five years ago Belarus was in the top ten of arms traders. Now, after the stock of the Soviet times has been exhausted, and Belarus has changed the specific character of its arms export, and remains in the top twenty of arms export, Alyaksandr Alesin notes:

“Now the structure of arms trade has been changed. We sell mostly military electronics, laser and optical equipment, microchips for air defence systems modernization and so on. If we take the weight, it cannot be compared with tanks, airplanes, which were exported before, but the cost of the equipment delivered now is high, so I think we can be included into the top ten”.

Besides, Alyaksandr Alesin told that the export of double-purpose goods, which could be used for military goals and which are no usually included into such reports, should be taken into consideration. And economist Yaraslau Ramanchuk believes that the Belarusian government should have made a report not only for the international organizations, but for its people as well, and to inform not only about the receivers of arms, but about the money received and purposes for which they had been spent.