الثلاثاء، مارس 5 مارس 2024
Switzerland sees a significant decline in war material exports, with a 27% reduction in 2023. Europe remains the largest market, while concerns rise over sales to human rights-violating countries
Swiss companies exported around 27% less war material in 2023 than in the previous year. Last year war material worth CHF 696.8 million was exported to 58 countries. In 2022, war material worth CHF 955 million was exported.
Total exports of goods from Switzerland in 2023 were around 1.2% lower than in the previous year. Swiss war material exports also recorded a decrease. War material exports account for 0.18% of the Swiss economy’s exports of goods.
According to Seco, the five main customer for Swiss war material were Germany with deliveries worth CHF 168.5 million. Followed by Denmark with CHF 73.6 million, the USA with CHF 54.3 million, Saudi Arabia with CHF 53.3 million and Romania with CHF 39.7 million.
In a press release issued on Tuesday, the Group for a Switzerland without an Army (Gsoa) criticised, in particular exports to countries that violate human rights, such as Saudi Arabia. Exports of war vehicles and special military goods to Israel are also conspicuous. The Gsoa is concerned about the power of the arms lobby, which is seeking to relax export regulations, it said.
Major transactions in the reporting period included exports of various types of ammunition and ammunition components to Germany (CHF 98.1 million), wheeled armored vehicles and their spare parts to Denmark (CHF 54.6 million) and specific ammunition for air defence systems to Saudi Arabia (CHF 40 million).
Wheeled armored vehicles and their spare parts were exported to Romania (CHF 39.6 million) and various types of ammunition and ammunition components were exported to the Netherlands (CHF 26.2 million).
According to Seco, around 79% of exported Swiss war material was destined for the 25 countries that belong to all four international export control regimes for the control of strategically sensitive goods. In 2022, this share amounted to 56%.
Exports to Europe rose from 50.4% in 2022 to 76.2%. Exports to Asia fell from 36.1% to 12.9%. The share of exports to America was 9.6 percent (previous year: 7.1 percent), to Australia 1.2 percent (2.4 percent) and to Africa 0.2 percent (4.0 percent).
9.2 percent was accounted for by fire control systems and associated components, 7.5 percent by weapons of all calibers and associated components, 6.7 percent by components for combat aircraft and 6.4 percent by small arms and weapon components. According to Seco, the remaining 8.1 percent was distributed across 7 other categories.
In the reporting year, a total of 2278 export applications were submitted to Seco (2022: 2625). 41 applications were rejected. 2238 applications with a value of CHF 1669 million were approved (previous year: CHF 2068.2 million).
With the annual report on export controls for small arms and light weapons, Switzerland is increasing transparency in this area in line with international efforts.
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