Bulgaria 2011 Arms Sales Total $380M: Report

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgaria's defense industry has escaped unscathed from the general economic crisis, with its exports hitting $380 million in 2011, Pressa newspaper reported Jan. 12.

It cited figures by the Bulgarian Defense Industry Association (BDIA). Such statistics are usually kept secret.

The organization, which groups Bulgaria's major arms and munitions makers, refused to specify where its sales went to.

The newspaper however cited Algeria, Afghanistan, the United States and Iraq as traditional buyers of Bulgarian light weapons and ammunition.

Bulgaria's defense industry exports had stood at $200 million in 2008, Pressa said citing data from the same association.

"It is still hard to compare the situation with the years before (the fall of communism in) 1989," BDIA co-chairman Stefan Vodenicharov told the newspaper.

Before the end of communism, Bulgaria's armaments industry was around 10 times the size it is now, employing 115,000 people and shipped abroad an annual $700 million to $800 million worth of armaments - at prices from then.

But the advent of democracy, the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact and a number of international arms sales embargoes to countries in Africa and the Arab world plunged the industry into a deep crisis in the 1990s.

The majority of production facilities have since been privatized with the government recently selling its remaining stock in the Arsenal Kazanlak light arms and munitions plant, the only licensed producer of Russian Kalashnikov assault rifles during the Cold War.

It had also prepared a strategy to soon put on the table VMZ Sopot, its biggest defense firm to remain fully state-owned.

Bulgaria To Shift Arms Exports to EU, NATO Markets

SOFIA, Bulgaria - After decades concentrating on Asia and Africa, Bulgaria plans to shift its arms exports to markets in the European Union and NATO, according to a new defense strategy presented July 5.
Currently, arms exports to EU and NATO countries do not exceed 10 percent of Bulgaria's annual defense sales abroad, which stand at about 250 million lev ($185 million), said the document, which was drafted jointly by the economy and defense ministries.

"Maintaining this tendency would hinder Bulgaria's integration and have a negative effect on the industry's competitiveness," it added.
The strategy has yet to be approved by the government during the next few months.
"This strategy is the first real effort on the part of any government since the fall of communism to offer a long-term development vision for the defense industry," Economy Minister Traicho Traikov said at the document's presentation July 5.
Under communism, Bulgaria's arms and munitions industry employed 115,000 people and shipped abroad some $700 million to $800 million worth of production.
But the collapse of communism, the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact defense treaty and a number of international arms sales embargoes to countries in Africa and the Arab world plunged the once booming industry into a deep crisis in the 1990s.
The majority of production facilities were privatized, but failure to attract foreign investors put them in the hands of small local buyers with limited potential for new investments.
An industry source told AFP on July 5 that Bulgaria still managed to preserve some of its markets in the Middle East, India and Algeria.
The new strategy will aim to keep these traditional arms export partners by forming joint ventures and common research and development projects.
Another major goal was to encourage the Bulgarian army to buy more local defense equipment by developing it to become fully compatible with NATO standards and also engage in collective alliance defense projects from 2018 on.
Bulgaria's defense industry currently employs some 15,000 people and makes up 0.5 percent of the general industry share in the country's gross domestic product, according to the document.

South Africa Exporting Arms to Repressive Regimes: Report

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa has exported millions of dollars' worth of arms to some of the world's most repressive regimes, a weekly newspaper said Sunday, citing a classified government weapons report.
Africa's largest arms exporter has sold weapons to five of the 10 least democratic states on the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index and 10 of the 25 worst performers on the Global Peace Index, which ranks nations by their peacefulness, according to The Sunday Independent.

The paper cites Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Burundi, China, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen as countries with questionable democracy and human rights records that have received South African weapons.
The government last year approved the sale of 35 billion rand ($5.3 billion, 3.6 billion euros) in arms to 78 countries, the Independent said, citing the annual report of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee, which officials have kept under wraps.
Of that total, the paper identified more than one billion rand in sales to repressive regimes.
South Africa's arms sales have been under the spotlight since opposition politicians accused the government of selling weapons to Libya, which they said leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces may now be using against civilians in the country's deepening conflict.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe, who chairs the arms control committee, told parliament South Africa had exported 81 million rand ($12 million, eight million euros) in weapons to Libya from 2003 to 2009, but said at the time there was no indication the arms would be used on civilians.
South Africa's arms control act requires the committee to vet exports by the country's $2.6-billion defense industry to ensure they will not be used for anything but "legitimate defense and security needs".
South Africa developed a home-grown defense industry during the apartheid era, when the white-minority regime was under a U.N. arms embargo.
The industry lost much of its government funding after the first democratic elections in 1994, turning to overseas sales to fill the gap.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, South Africa was the world's 15th largest arms exporter from 2006 to 2010.