PARIS, Dec 16: France says that 2002 is to be a record year for defence exports and that by the end of this month arms sales abroad were likely to reach five billion dollars.

The figure is probably much higher, says a spokesman for the Delegation generale pour l’armement (DGA), the organization that oversees the export of French armaments, who notes that the five billion dollar figure takes into consideration only those arms orders for which partial payment has already been placed on deposit with French banks.

Nevertheless, says the DGA spokesman, France will once again be one of the world’s top three arms exporters _ behind only the United States and Russia.

Among this year’s orders, it was particularly that for two submarines by Malaysia which accounted for 25 per cent of all French arms exports, with another 750 million fdollars coming in the form of orders for the Tigre helicopter.

An additional 400 million dollars is expected because of Malaysia’s submarine order, for maintenance and spare parts and the acquisition of additional hardware.

As for next year, the DGA spokesman says that the situation will be better than this year.