Bahrain Mirror: A report issued by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), an international institute based in Sweden, showed that Bahrain's spending on armament reached 4.1% of GDP.

According to the research database of SIPRI, Bahrain spending on armament amounted to $1.396 billion (about 527 million BD) in 2017, compared to $1.505 billion (about 568 million BD) in 2016.

Military spending in the Middle East reached 5.2% of its states' GDP. This is considered the highest rate on the international level, as no other region in the world allocated more than 1.8 % of GDP to military spending.

The report also showed that 7 of the 10 countries with the highest military burden compared to their GDP are in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia has the third highest military expenditure in the world after the United States and China. Saudi Arabia spent in 2017 more than $69 billion on armament, despite low oil prices that have affected the Gulf States' economies since 2014.

In general, total world military expenditure rose to $1739 billion in 2017, a marginal increase of 1.1 % in real terms from 2016.

Arabic Version