6. Arms Production*

Elisabeth Sköns and Reinhilde Weidacher

The restructuring of arms production continued in 1999, while the decline in the general level of arms production appears to have ceased towards the end of the 1990s. The aggregate arms sales of the ‘SIPRI top 100’ arms-producing companies in the OECD and developing countries, which account for roughly three-quarters of total world arms production, declined by 29% during the first half of the 1990s, but by only 3% during the period 1995–98. In 1998 their total arms sales amounted to $155 billion.
Since 1997 the Russian Government has assigned a higher priority to arms production in an effort to stop the deterioration of its defence industrial base. The decline in Russian arms production ceased in 1997; in 1999 it increased by 37% but it still amounted to only 13.5% of Soviet arms production in 1991. A significant part, although it is not known how much, of Russian arms production is for export.
The restructuring process in the OECD arms industries in the 1990s has resulted in greater concentration, particularly among the larger companies, and in diversification from military to civilian products in industries and in individual companies. A few companies have tended instead to specialize in military production, thereby increasing their dependence on arms sales and often also on arms exports.

• Appendix 6A, by Reinhilde Weidacher and the SIPRI Arms Industry Network, is a table of the 100 largest arms-producing companies in 1998.

• Appendix 6B presents tables showing major acquisitions by arms-producing companies in Western Europe and the USA between 1998 and January 2000.