Latin America Beefs Up Defense Spending

[tigershark]

Latin America Beefs Up Defense Spending
Posted by Christina Mackenzie at 8/15/2008 11:17 AM CDT

Which continent has increased military spending by 33% in real terms over the past five years? No, not Asia but South America, according to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which adds that it is not, however, the region of the world which spends the most on its military.

SIPRI reports that in the last five years Venezuela, Ecuador and Chile have increased military expenditure in real terms by 78%, 53% and 49% respectively. In Central America Honduras has raised military spending by 20% in the last five years followed by Mexico with 15%.
Nevertheless in terms of the percentage of GDP spent on defense, Colombia, somewhat unsurprisingly given the government's strong stance against the FARC guerilla movement, tops the league, spending 4% of its GDP on military spending, followed by Chile with 3.6% and Ecuador, 2.3%.

Over the past few weeks Peru and Ecuador have both revealed military procurement plans. Peru's  defense minister, Antero Flores Araoz, signed a $106 million contract with Russia on August 12 to upgrade Peru's 19 MIG-29s so as to recover “the operational capability of our Armed Forces.”
The planes were bought from Russia and Belarus in the late 1990s. The project comes in the framework of the $654 million “Basic Defense” program which ends in 2011. Peru is also buying two Dhruv helicopters from India.
Ecuador in May announced the $200 million purchase of 24 Brazilian-made Super Tucano fighters, fast boats and radars for border surveillance, in June said it was buying six Israeli-made UAVs, and last month said it was buying seven Indian Dhruv helicopters for about $7.2 million apiece (note that the Indian Navy refused to buy Dhruvs after evaluating six of them, complaining of lack of engine power and poor reliability...).

Source
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a433e4fc1-b68a-447e-91cc-4e0fd1ecd322