Military expenses in S Asia increased by 50 pc

Washington: In 10 years from 1995 to 2005, the military expenditure in South Asia increased by 50 per cent, and one in every 10 military personnel in the world are in this part of the globe, a US report has said.

"From 1995 to 2005, the military expenditures of the states of South Asia appear to have risen about 50 per cent in absolute terms and about 23 per cent per capita terms," said the report "World Military Expenditure and Arms Transfers 2005: Highlights and Trends", released by the US State Department.

"South Asia's share of world military spending appears to have risen from about 1.8 per cent in 1995 to about 2.1 per cent in 2005. During the decade, the share of the sum of South Asia's GDPs to which its military expenditures were equivalent appears to have fallen from 2.7 per cent in 1995 to 2.4 per cent in 2005," the report said.

During 1995 through 2005, South Asia's arms exports appear to have been negligible, while the annual value of its arms imports appears to have ranged from about $ 1 billion to about $ 4 billion, trending upward, it said.

The region's share of world arms imports appears to have been about three per cent, trending upward and exceeding four per cent in 2004-05, the report said.

"South Asia's arms imports appear to have been equivalent to about 1.6 per cent of its recorded imports of all goods and services, and its arms trade deficit appears to have been about $ 26 billion, equivalent to about five per cent of its recorded trade deficit in all goods and services," it said.

Globally the report said, in constant-2005-dollar real-exchange-rate terms, world military expenditures appear to have risen about 30 per cent from 1995 to 2005, reaching nearly $ 1.2 trillion in 2005.

The increase accelerated during the second half of the decade, from less than six percent between 1995 and 2000 to almost 24 per cent between 2000 and 2005.

"This acceleration appears due chiefly to rising military expenditures by the United States after the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, including expenditures for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq," it said.