Russian president, Vladimir Putin (L) and Algerian counterpart, Abdel Aziz Boutaflika (R) Algiers – Hocine Bousaleh Data provided by U.S. Congress, confirmed that Algeria buys more arms from Russia than any other nation. During the period of 2008 to 2011, weapons deals .between Algeria and Russia totaled $2.3 billion. The American newspaper the World Tribune, said Syria comes in second place in with $1.7 billion of purchases during the same period. The sale of arms from Russia to Syria "rose dramatically in 2011." Kuwait came third on the list with $700million.”
The Peace Research Institute based in Stockholm, revealed last April that Algeria "raised its budget for military purposes by 44 percent" over the past year. It is seventh in the world in terms of weapons expenditure. Algeria is re-equipping its army with the income derived from high oil and gas prices worldwide.
Algeria came before Morocco and South Africa on the African continent, the three countries' weapons purchases reached about 75 percent of global weapons imports, in the period from 2007 to 2011.
According to the report, India came top of the arms import list, while the United States and Russia were top of global weapons sales, selling nearly half of all weapons in the period.