WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States still dominates global weapon sales, signing deals worth 12.4 billion US dollars last year, or 33.5 percent of all contracts worldwide.

    Meanwhile, the share of US arms contracts with developing countries was 6.9 billion US dollars in 2004, or 31.6 percent of all such deals in the world, according to Tuesday's The New York Times.

    The figures were revealed in a report newly released by the US Congress.

    Russia was second in global arms sales, with 6.1 billion dollarsin deals, or 16.5 percent of all such contracts.

    In 2004, Russia signed arms transfer deals worth 5.9 billion dollars with the developing world, 27.1 percent of the global total.

    Britain took the third place in arms transfer agreements to the developing world in 2004, signing contracts worth 3.2 billion dollars, followed by Israel and France.

    The total value of weapons sales worldwide was nearly 37 billiondollars in 2004, according to the report.

    That number was the largest since 2000, when global arms sales reached 42.1 billion dollars, and was far above the 2003 figure of28.5 billion dollars. Enditem