Israeli military exports reached $8.3 billion in 2020, buoyed by a 15 percent spike in the number of agreements signed compared with the previous year, the government announced Tuesday.

Despite fears the coronavirus pandemic would impact 2020 sales, Israel cited new markets in allowing sales jumping $1 billion from 2019.

It’s the second highest sales figure ever, behind 2017, when the total hit $9.2 billion.

During the past year, we have worked intensively to deepen government agreements and cooperation with our partners around the world, and we will continue to do so,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.

As in previous years the bulk of the military exports went to countries in Asia and the Pacific region, the ministry statement said.

The European Union (EU) is preparing sanctions on Belarus’ national airline and around a dozen top Belarusian aviation officials, three diplomats said, a stop-gap measure before economic sanctions following the forced landing of a passenger plane.

The proposed asset freezes and travel bans are part of a package of new sanctions on Belarus from EU states, which are outraged that a Ryanair flight was pressed to land in Minsk on May 23 to arrest a dissident journalist and his girlfriend.

EU governments, which described the incident as state piracy, say they are looking at targeting sectors that play a central role in the Belarus economy, to inflict real punishment on President Alexander Lukashenko. They could include bond sales, the oil sector and potash, a big Belarusian export.

Before imposing such economic sanctions, the bloc is expected to agree by June 21 – when EU foreign ministers meet – a smaller sanctions list on individuals and two entities as a quick, intermediary response, the diplomats said.

“All EU states agree with this approach,” one diplomat said. A second diplomat said there would be “a clear signal for Lukashenko that his actions were dangerous and unacceptable”.

While the sanctions are still under discussion, EU ambassadors as early as Friday could pre-approve banning overflights and landing in EU territory by Belarus airlines, allowing EU ministers to formally sign off on them later in the month.

Britain, no longer part of the EU, has suspended the air permit for Belarus’ national carrier, Belavia. The EU is expected to do the same, the diplomats said.

The OPEC group of oil-producing countries and its allies agreed on Tuesday (Jun 1) to maintain planned production increases, as pandemic-hit demand for crude recovers.

The 23-nation OPEC+ alliance implemented sharp output cuts to support prices after the coronavirus pandemic crushed the global economy last year.

But since early May the cartel has started implementing more generous production increases as oil prices have recovered and the health situation improves in developed economies.

At the end of a short meeting on Tuesday which lasted barely half an hour, the group agreed to continue rises up until July adding up to 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), to which will be added a further million bpd which had been voluntarily withdrawn by Saudi Arabia.

However, the alliance took no decision on what policy to follow from August onwards, and did not discuss the possibility of Iranian oil returning to the market in the coming months.

Among OPEC’s allies, Russia has in recent times pushed for faster rises in output with traditional OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia supporting a much more cautious approach.

For his part Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said: “We see that demand has increased, that prices have stabilised,” and spoke of a “normalisation” of the global economy.

OPEC has remained optimistic in its predictions for 2021, expecting demand to reach 96.5 million bpd, an increase of six million on 2020 levels.

World oil prices continued their recent upward trend on news of the OPEC+ decision, with the European Brent and US WTI benchmark contracts rising by around two percent at 1600 GMT on Tuesday, with WTI reaching levels unseen since October 2018.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Member nations on Wednesday officially agreed to allow the United Kingdom to start the process of joining the pact, Japan’s economy minister said.

Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters he welcomed the start of Britain’s joining process after hosting an online meeting of ministers from the 11 countries that make up the trans-Pacific trade pact.

“I think there’s a big meaning to this from a strategic viewpoint of strengthening economic relations between Japan and the United Kingdom,” Nishimura said.

The United Kingdom’s admission into CPTPP would bring the nominal gross domestic product of the zone covered by the pact almost on par with that of the European Union, he added.

“The commencement of an accession process with the United Kingdom and the potential expansion of the CPTPP will send a strong signal to our trading partners around the world,” the 11 member countries said in a statement.

Britain made a formal request to join the trade deal in February as it sought to open new avenues for post-Brexit trade and influence.

The CPTPP removes 95 per cent of tariffs between its members: Japan, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Peru, Brunei, Chile and Malaysia. Unlike the EU, it does not aim to create a single market or a customs union, and it does not seek wider political integration.

The United Kingdom and Japan signed off on a trade agreement in October last year, marking its first major post-Brexit deal on trade.

Source: Reuters