Money, or lack of it, has rarely been the deciding factor when it comes to defence procurement in the Middle East. For those states with economies based on oil revenues or, in more recent times, financial services and tourism, the choice of what to buy has been largely dictated by political considerations and such practical issues as indigenous training and support capacity. This is now changing and as the skills base and national desire to provide more capabilities spreads across the region, orders are beginning to flow again. For manufacturers, particularly in Europe, but also in the USA, the declining volume of home defence procurement means that an expanding Middle East market is offering life-saving new business, extending production runs and keeping open product lines that might otherwise have to be re-acti-vated later - not always an achievable task. The Middle East market is thus far more important today to overall Western aerospace and defence companies than might at first be realised.
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