Thursday, June 03, 2010

Defense spending in Latin America

Via MercoPress: SIPRI put out a press release for its annual report on military expenditures, which will come out next month.

Depressingly, the region is spending more on the military than last year and much more than a decade ago.  It is a recession-proof.  At the same time, the increases are by no means uniform.  For example, Mexico accounts for almost all of the increase in the "Central America and Caribbean" category.

Strangely enough, Uruguay had the highest relative increase in spending from 2008 to 2009 (24 percent).  Brazil had the highest absolute increase ($3.8 billion) and now has the 11th highest defense spending in the world.

Probably the most newsworthy tidbit is that defense spending in Venezuela decreased 25 percent from 2008 to 2009, the biggest drop of any country in Latin America.  Meanwhile, Colombia increased 11 percent, and a Santos victory would suggest that won't be going down.

3 comments:

Randy Paul 9:24 PM  

Greg,

Do you know of any other defense exporters in Latin America other than Brazil?

boz 7:25 AM  

Brazil is the only major defense exporter. Everything I'm about to list below is really minor compared to what they're doing.

Colombia is exporting some small items that it has gained expertise in over the past few decades including refurbished bullet-proof cars and bomb sniffing dogs. It's less an industry and more small business finding export markets.

Venezuela has recently sold or given away some defense items to allies, but it's limited in scale.

Argentina and Chile have some industries doing defense or dual-use parts. Argentina has discussed increasing it in recent years.

Mexico's Hydra Technologies has designed and developed UAVs which are operational and will probably find an export market.

Anonymous,  6:18 AM  

Hi,

Thank you for your informative blog. Do you know how an Arms Trade Treaty would affect these figures in latin America?

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