The United States of America remained Romania’s main partner in the trade of weapons and military equipment.

In the first nine months of 2016, the U.S. imported weapons and military equipment produced in Romania worth over EUR 51 million. This represented almost 40% of Romania’s total exports of weapons and military equipment, reports local Mediafax.

In total, Romania exported weapons and military equipment of over EUR 130 million in the first nine months of last year. Americans bought 3,100 guns, 8,150 assault rifles, 766 light machine guns as well as other products made in Romania.

During the same period, Romania exported military equipment worth EUR 19.2 million to Saudi Arabia, the country’s second most important partner on this segment, according to data from the Department for the Exports’ Control within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Romania’s third important customer is Israel, which acquired military equipment and weapons of over EUR 12 million between January and September last year. Bulgaria came next, with imports of over EUR 12 million from Romania.

An investigation by Balkan Insight from July last year showed that countries in the Central and Eastern Europe, including Romania, have exported weapons of EUR 1.2 billion to the Middle East since 2012. Many of them reached Saudi Arabia. However, experts showed that in most cases the final destination was Syria.

editor@romania-insider.com