By Joung Haseung 

Korea ranks eighth worldwide in weapons exports.

A report by the economic think tank of the Export-Import Bank of Korea on July 25 said the nation's arms exports skyrocketed 176.8% from 2017 to last year compared to those shipped from 2012-16.

Such growth was the highest among the world's top 10 weapons-exporting countries including the U.S., Russia, France and China.

Korea ranked eighth in weapons exports, and its share of the global market nearly tripled from 1% during the 2012-16 period to 2.8% over the last five years.

The top weapons exporter was the U.S. (39%), followed in order by Russia (19%), France (11%), China (5%), Germany (4%), Italy (3%) and the U.K. (3%).

These statistics were based on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) of Sweden. SIPRI uses the trend indicator value (TIV), an index that comprehensively evaluates the performance of arms and used goods, not the volume or value of exports when calculating weapons transactions. Specific export amounts are not given.

By item, Korea's main defense exports over the last five years were naval vessels (68%), cannons (19%) and aircraft (12%). Shipments of such vessels jumped an astounding 1,660% from 2012-16 to lead the nation's growth in arms exports.

From 2017 to last year, the nation's main export partners were the Philippines (16%), Indonesia (14%) and the U.K. (14%). They had been Turkey (28%), Indonesia (27%) and Iraq (23%) from 2012-16.

Domestic defense companies also saw continued growth in exports and sales.

Last year's defense exports reached a record-high USD 7 billion (KRW 9.2 trillion).

Such companies saw sales in 2020 grow to KRW 15 trillion, up 6.2% from the previous year, and operating profits rose 16.4% to KRW 567.5 billion.

Four sectors of the defense industry accounted for 75.4% of overall sales: aircraft fuel (31.9%), ammunition (16.5%), firepower (13.7%) and naval vessels (13.3%).

jhaseung@korea.kr