Washington, October 1:

The US reaffirmed last year its leadership in world arms trade, cornering nearly 42 per cent of the market as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a weapons shopping spree among neighboring nations, according to a congressional report set to be released today.

But the overall volume of weapons trade shrunk almost 13 per cent, dealing a blow to France and other Western European suppliers, which are facing stiff competition from across the Atlantic, said the Congressional Research Service in its annual survey of international arms sales. The US ranked first in international arms transfer pacts last year, concluding $16.9 billion worth of them and securing 41.9 per cent of the market, according to the report.

The total represented a $3.4 billion increase over 2005. Russia boosted its worldwide arms sales by $1.2 billion, ending 2006 in second place with a total of $8.7 billion, or 21.6 per cent of the market. Britain came in third, but its arms exports grew on-ly 200 million over 2005 and the overall volume of arms transfer deals stood at just $3.1 billion, less th-an a fifth of the US total.

The US, Russia and Britain controlled last year more than 71 per cent of international ar-ms trade. But the size of market has shrunk as major buyers took a pau-se to absorb previous pu-rchases. Worldwide wea-pons orders, according to the report, declined from $46.3 billion in 2005 to 40.3 billion last year.

Western European nations were among those hit hardest by the slump. The four major regional suppliers — France, Britain, Germany and It-aly — saw collective value of their arms agreements with developing nations drop by half — from $10.9 billion in 2005 to $5.5 billion last year. Meanwhile, Western Europe’s market share decreased, according to the report, from 34.4 per cent to 19.1 per cent. Richard Grimmett, the top national defense expert at the CRS and main author of the study, made it clear he saw growing competition from the US as the main reason for the EU woes.

“The demand for US weapons in the global arms marketplace, from a large established client base, has created a more difficult environment for individual West European suppliers to secure large new contracts with developing nations on a sustained basis,” he wrote. But Grimmett also noted a major shift in political and economic interests driving post-Cold War era international weapons sales.

During the Cold War, he argued, the underlying rationale for US arms sales was to ensure adequate arms supplies to friendly states. “Today that motivation may be based as much on economic considerations as those of foreign or national security policy,” the expert pointed out. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the traditional rivalry between India and Pakistan, seemed to be fueling regional arms races.

Pakistan, a key US partner, ranked first last year among all developing world weapons purchasers after concluding $5.1 billion worth of arms deals. India came second with $3.5 billion while Saudi Arabia ranked third with $3.2 billion in arms agreements.