Iraq Fast Catching Up With China, India As Russia's Biggest Arms Importer

Iraq has joined India and China as Russia's top three arms importers in 2014.  

Rostec, the holding company of various Russian arms manufacturers said in its annual report on Wednesday that the deliveries of Russian military equipment were made to 59 countries. The main importers were India (25 percent), China (22 percent), Iraq (22 percent), Syria (5 percent), and Venezuela (5 percent).

The company has exported 75 per cent of weapons to Asia, 9 per cent to Latin America, and 7 per cent to the  Middle East.

The annual report also reflects that military exports to the former soviet republics have plunged to $370 million in 2014 from $1.5 billion in 2013. The company fulfilled 9,400 contracts in 2014; that is 54 percent more than in 2013.

However, western sanctions against Russia could diminish the attractiveness of the corporation's projects for investors. "Sanctions imposed by Western countries against the Russian Federation in relation to the Ukrainian crisis inevitably affected the corporation and its organizations”, the report said.

The sanctions are intended to affect the company’s subsidiaries. The sanctions could harm investment attractiveness of the corporation's projects and the capitalization of its brand, as well as Rostec's profit received from the subsidiaries' shares and stocks.

The corporation, which deals with hi-tech industrial products and military arms and equipment, pointed that US sanctions specifically prohibited US citizens and legal entities from making any new financial transactions and provisioning new loans to Russian citizens or legal entities for a period of more than 30 days.