Morocco remains at 29th place in the “Weapons Supplier” ranking, even with a 46% reduction in arms imports, said Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its report released on Monday.
Morocco ranked seventh in the Arab world, behind Saudi Arabia (2nd worldwide), Qatar (3rd worldwide), Egypt (7th worldwide), Kuwait (12th worldwide), the United Arab Emirates (14th worldwide) and Algeria (21st worldwide).
The report showed that African countries’ arms imports had fallen by 52% between both four-year incremental periods of 2014-2018 and 2019-2023, primarily due to the sharp declines observed in imports by the continent’s two biggest importers–one of which was Algeria–resulting in an overall decrease of 77%.
Globally, the Kingdom’s share of world arms imports comprised 0.8% in the 2019-2023 period, compared with 1.4% during the 2014-2018 time frame.
As far as suppliers are concerned, the United States is Morocco’s primary arms supplier, with a 69% share, followed by France (14%). Israel ranks third among Morocco’s arms suppliers (11%).