Swiss firm Ruag among top 100 in arms sales

Ruag is a state-owned company. Keystone

Ruag remains among the top 100 arms manufacturers by sales according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). 

SIPRI’External links annual figures, that were released on Monday, show that Ruag managed to clinch the 95^th spot in 2017. It moved up by one place compared to the year before thanks to more arms sales: $870 million (CHF860 million) compared to $820 million the year before. Overall, the company registered sales of $1.98 billion, an increase of 5%. 

American firms were responsible for the bulk of global arms sales (57%), followed by Russia (9.5%), UK (9%) and France (5.3%). China was not included in SIPRI’s statistics as reliable data could not be obtained. 

According to SIPRI, American firms sold $226.6 billion worth of arms largely thanks to demand from the US military. Russian arms sales were worth $37.7 billion and went towards modernising the Russian military. Turkey showed one of the largest increase in sales (24%) reflecting the intention of the country to develop its own arms manufacturing base and reduce its reliance on foreign firms.