Azerbaijan’s Defense and Security Spending Amounted to 3% of GDP in 2015

According to Turan referring to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Azerbaijan took the 10th place among 16 nations whose defense spending exceeded 4% of GDP. However, this information is not right. Azerbaijan's GDP amounted to $ 52.9 billion in 2015. And on power structures it was planned to allocate $ 2.116 billion, but later the amount was reduced to $ 1.7 billion. Thus, spending on defense and security amounted to 3% of GDP. Of these, purely on the army $ 1.206 billion or 2% of GDP was spent. However, compared with 2013, military spending fell by almost half.

Armenia occupied the 13th place in the list of the countries with a military budget of $ 417 million.

In the list of 16 leading there are Oman, South Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. Russia is at the 8th place. Bringing up the rear is Lebanon.

The US continues to remain the country with the largest military spending, but about 3% of GDP. US military spending fell in 2015, slower than the previous year, a decline of 2.4%, RIA Novosti reported with reference to SIPRI. Among the reasons the researchers call Congress adopted measures to mitigate the effects of reduction of previous years’ expenditures in the budget. The US share of world military spending, according to SIPRI, in spite of the cost reduction continues to be a heavy and was 36% in 2015.

In general, the list of countries with the largest military spending compiled by SIPRI remained virtually unchanged from 2014. The second place in the new rating is given, as before, to China (13% of global spending), followed by Saudi Arabia (5.2%), and Russia that fell from third to fourth place (4.0%). The top five includes the United Kingdom (3.3%).

World military spending amounted to nearly $ 1.7 trillion in 2015, an increase over the year by 1%.

Mild and slightly slower than in the previous year 2014, analysts called the reduction of military expenditure in North America, Western Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The increase in expenses was recorded in Asia and the Pacific, Eastern and Central Europe as well as in the Middle East.

SIPRI noticed that the military expenditures are due to government spending on military forces and activities, including the salary and other benefits, operating costs, procurement of weapons and equipment, military construction, research and development, administrative expenses and so on.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute was founded in 1966. It is an independent think tank engaged in research conflicts, armaments, arms control and disarmament. -0-