The French armaments sector is doing well. France's trade surplus on war materials reached the "record positive balance of 8.5 billion euros" in 2019, up by a third from the previous year, announced on Monday 15 June the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

With 11.3 billion euros of equipment delivered abroad (+33.7%) and 2.7 billion imported (+34.1%), the French armaments sector was in 2019 "a of the main sources of attenuation of the trade deficit of France "which amounted to 58.9 billion, says the Economic Observatory of Defense in its monthly bulletin.

It is preceded by the civil aeronautics industry (29.6 billion euros in trade surplus), the agrifood sector (13.2 billion) and the perfume and cosmetic manufacturing sector (12.5 billion).

Order intake in the French arms industry, revealed in early June in a report to Parliament, was down 8.6% in 2019 to 8.3 billion euros.

Record for Rafale delivery

In terms of deliveries, exports were driven by "planes and other aerial vehicles" which representing a quarter of the total amount of exports, at 2.8 billion euros (+ 24.4%). Dassault Aviation notably delivered a record number of 26 Rafale combat aircraft to India, Egypt and Qatar.

At the same time, exports of "propulsion systems", such as turbojets, amounted to 2.3 billion euros (+ 34%), while arms and ammunition reached 2.1 billion (+ 34.7%). and radars and sonars 1.8 billion (+33.1%).

The strongest increases concerned exports of armored vehicles (+ 56.8%, to 1.1 billion) and optical, measurement and control instruments (+ 47%, to 700 million). Export shipments of warships fell 20.4% to 128.3 million euros.

Imports are mainly due to "planes and other aerial equipment" (51% of the total, at 1.4 billion euros, notably for the acquisition of the Reaper drone) and weapons and ammunition (400 million) .

With AFP

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