Geneva - The United States was the world's leading exporter and importer of small arms, according to a new survey released Thursday by a Geneva university.

The annual Small Arms Survey, published by the Graduate Institute in Geneva and funded largely by the Swiss government, showed that the authorized global trade in small arms, light weapons and ammunition, jumped 28 per cent from 2000 to 2006, an increase of some 653 million dollars.

In all, the global authorized trade in shotguns, rifles, pistols and revolvers was about 1.44 billion dollars in 2006. About 140 million dollars in additional transfers were estimated to have not been captured by available customs data.

After the US, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Brazil were the largest exporters, over the six years. The other big importers were Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Germany and France.

The authors of the report said they believed China and Russia to also be large exporters, but lacked access to concrete information.

The most transparent countries in terms of reporting on their direct arms sales were Switzerland, Britain, Germany and Norway, with the Netherlands, Serbia and the United States tied for fifth place.

Iran and North Korea had the worst levels of transparency, followed by South Africa, Russia and Israel.

The information in the report was largely based around information made publicly available by governments.

The international community spent 2.3 billion dollars on disarmament and other programs aimed at addressing the problems of illicit small arms proliferation, with only limited successes in certain areas.

Most guns, however, say the authors of the survey, start their lives legally, through authorized deals, turning into illicit arms at later stages.

The 334-page study, also looked into post-conflict situations in south Lebanon, Aceh in Indonesia and Afghanistan.

The authors of the report warned that with the proliferation of arms, countries coming out of conflict could become even more violent than they were during the fighting. They stressed that disarmament and reintegration were key to ending violence.(dpa)