PARIS, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- France remains the world's fourth-largest arms exporter after the United States, Britain and Russia as sales went up by 160 million euros (235 million U.S. dollars) in 2006, the French Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

    French arms exports reached 4.03 billion euros (5.88 billion dollars) last year and new orders also saw an increase of 40 percent over the previous year, reaching 5.74 billion euros (8.44 billion dollars) in 2006.

    However, as the world's arms trade has grown to an annual volume of some 65 billion euros (95 billion dollars), France's market share slipped slightly, the ministry acknowledged.