In the first half of 2019, Germany dramatically increased its arms exports. In January-June of this year, the Federal Government of Germany approved contracts for the export of arms totaling 5.3 billion euros, dpa reports, citing information provided by the German Ministry of Economy.
That's more weapons than were sold in all of 2018 - in which the German government approved contracts for the export of weapons worth 4.8 billion euros. And compared with the first half of last year, an increase of 107 percent was recorded.
The three countries that bought the most German weapons were Hungary (1.76 billion euros), Egypt (0.8 billion euros) and South Korea (0.3 billion euros). In addition, the United Arab Emirates (0.2 billion euros), which, like Egypt, is participating in the hostilities in Yemen against the Houthi rebels as part of the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia, is in sixth place on this list.
In general, the share of German arms exports to countries not belonging to the European Union or NATO is 40 percent in the first half of this year. This is noticeably less than in previous years (more than 50), and is explained by the significant purchases of weapons by Hungary.
