US says its arms exports boomed this year

US: U.S. government-brokered overseas arms sales are expected to total about $34 billion in the current fiscal year, up more than 45 percent from the year before, the Pentagon agency in charge said on Wednesday.

"Our program is growing by leaps and bounds," Jeanne Farmer of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency told an international defense industry conference.

Among the biggest government-to-government buyers in fiscal 2008, which wraps up at the end of this month, were Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt and Iraq, Farmer said.

In fiscal 2007, such sales totaled $23.3 billion, up from $21 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the security agency's figures.

Washington, Thursday, Reuters