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UK sales of weapons and arms to the Middle East are in the news. So what is the market, run by the government’s Strategic Export Controls, worth? • Get the data How big are arms sales to the Middle East and North Africa? The unrest in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and across the region has brought attention to one of the UK’s most successful export markets: military equipment. It’s a world shrouded in secrecy, and centred on giant arms fairs, such as Idex , taking place in Abu Dhabi. In the UK the international arms trade is managed by Strategic Export Controls, which grant licenses. They’re not just for arms, but for a whole range of ‘controlled’ products. Here’s the official take from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills : The Export Control Organisation is responsible for legislating, assessing and issuing export and trade licences for specific categories of “controlled” goods. This encompasses a wide range of items including so-called dual-use goods, torture goods, radioactive sources, as well as military items. Whether a licence is required depends on various factors including the items exported and any sanctions in force on the export destination. If items exported from the United Kingdom are controlled, then a licence is needed to legally export. Exporters are responsible for complying with the law, understanding the regulations and keeping informed. This is isn’t everything sold, but the vast majority and everything granted a license is categorised. The official reports ( published in PDF format ) detail the maximum values of licenses granted in each group. There is a searchable database (you can access it here ). But for the breakdowns, you have to use the PDFs. Licenses can and are often revoked – as some have just been to Bahrain. The reports also provide examples of products which can be sold in each category – and there’s also a complete guide to the different codes. It’s called the UK Military List , and it details exactly what’s controlled. The data gives a unique insight into the UK’s trade in controlled products and weapons in this region. And while demonstrators take to the streets in places like Libya, it’s raised the question: have we sold the weapons and riot control equipment being used against the protesters? Let’s look at Libya. The data shows that £215m worth of export licenses for controlled products were granted to companies selling stuff to Libya in the year to the end of September 2010. Of that amount, just under £8m were for equipment defined as military. Those products include riot control gear and tear gas. Iran features on this list too, not for military equipment but for ‘other’ products – £424m of them. They include civil jet engines, chemicals and civilian aircraft. What about the products classified under ‘other’? Campaigners such as the Campaign Against the Arms Trade point out that policing what happens to equipment once it gets to a country is impossible. How do you know that a navigation system is not being used in a military aircraft rather than a civil jet? We have collected this data together, from 1 October 2009 to 1 October 2010 – the first time that this data has been collected on one spreadsheet. It includes: • All categories of license by Middle East and North African countries • All the military breakdowns, by category • A complete breakdown of licenses by country The full data is below . What can you do with it? Data summary Download the data • DATA: download the full spreadsheet More data Data journalism and data visualisations from the Guardian World government data • Search the world’s government data with our gateway Development and aid data • Search the world’s global development data with our gateway Can you do something with this data? • Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group • Contact us at data@guardian.co.uk • Get the A-Z of data • More at the Datastore directory • Follow us on Twitter • Like us on Facebook Arab and Middle East protests Middle East Libya Bahrain Tunisia Egypt Simon Rogers guardian.co.uk