German arms exports rise notably in past 4 years

BERLIN, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The acting "grand coalition" government between CDU/CSU conservative bloc and Social Democrats (SPD) has overseen a significant increase in arms exports, official data revealed on Wednesday.

German firms had exported military products worth 24.9 billion euros (30.8 billion U.S. dollars) between 2014 and 2017, according to preliminary figures released by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

The figure represented an increase of 21 percent compared to the previous legislative period (2010-2013), when Germany was governed by a center-right coalition between the CDU/CSU and Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Arms deliveries to so-called "Third Party States" -- which are neither members of the EU, nor of the NATO -- grew even faster by 47 percent to a total of 14.48 billion euros during the past four years.

In 2017 alone, weapons and other armaments worth 3.79 billion euros were exported to Third Party States, marking a year-on-year increase of 127 million euros.

Although the total value of German arms exports fell by 8.9 percent year on year to 6.24 billion euros in 2017, this was still the third highest figure ever measured following two record years in 2015 and 2016. Enditem