UK Defence Exports figures

(This was embargoed until 00:01 am GMT on Friday 27th April, and posted here about nine hours later). 

·      UK DEFENCE AND SECURITY EXPORTS 2011 – UK MAINTAINS ITS POSITION AS SECOND MOST SUCCESSFUL DEFENCE EXPORTER

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·      The UK exported £8 billion of defence and security goods and services in 2011. This compared with £8 billion in 2010. Defence exports were down by £400M at £5.4 billion but security sector exports increased by £600m to £2.6 billion.

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·      In 2011 UK gained over 15% of the world defence market, ahead of Russia and France. US led the market with 35%. Measured over a ten year rolling average which smoothes fluctuations caused by major contract awards, UK retains 20% of the global market and is the second most successful exporter behind the USA.

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·      Lord Green, Minister for trade and investment said: 

“These figures show the strength and breadth of this important high technology sector and its contribution to advanced manufacturing trade. They are all the more encouraging in the absence of a major defence platform export from UK last year, illustrating the remarkable breadth and depth of the UK’s defence industrial base which is rich in SMEs. The increase in the security sector reinforces a consistent picture of year on year growth. Growth is also particularly strong in the cyber security area. The UK Government will remain committed to support UK industry as it continues to excel in this very fast growing global market, which is also so critical to our own national security.”     

• This was another strong year for UK industry in a very competitive market. Some big contracts were won by others in 2011 in the largest of which UK industry was not in a position to compete.

• We remain strongly placed on a number of key prospects around the world in 2012 and into the future. Also, the security sector is still growing strongly. If you measure across a longer period to iron out fluctuations then UK is still winning 20% of the world defence export market on average, well ahead of Russia and France.
  
  

• The biggest contracts included submarines for Israel and Indonesia, area air defence for Saudi Arabia and UAE and Mirage upgrades for India.

• Top destinations for UK exports were The Middle East, USA and India for defence; USA, China, Japan and India for security.

• The 2011 headline figure for security exports was £2.6 billion. But this is not a real 30% increase from last year’s £2 billion. The like for like increase is about 5%. The remainder arises from our rapidly developing understanding of the size and complexity of the Cyber security market, which has led to a new definition of the security sector, and a substantial increase in the figures. We now estimate the global security export market at £62 billion, larger than defence. The UK share however, at around 4%, is much smaller than our 20% of the defence market. UK is the 6th largest security exporter behind USA, China, Japan, India and Germany.