Catholic and Protestant church leaders in Germany have united to call for restrictions on their country's arms sales.

The Catholic-Protestant Joint Conference on Church and Development claims arms sales rose an astonishing 96 per cent in 2015 – with exports worth 13.6 billion dollars. It's thought the 2016 figure will continue the trend.

The organisation has launched a new report detailing its concerns with the German arms industry – which it says is now the third biggest in the world.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are two of the repressive regimes in receipt of German arms – both of whom are part of the coalition accused of human rights abuses in the ongoing war in Yemen. The church group calls arms sales to the two countries "completely unnacceptable".

Catholics and Lutherans have been working together on various social issues since the early 1970s. The Conference is now calling for a new law which would mean the government has to say why the weapons are being sold. Monsignor Karl Justen, director of the German church's Catholic Office in Berlin said, "While government policy allows exports to third countries in regions of crisis and conflict only in justified individual cases, the data show otherwise – this is why we're asking for a new law requiring the reasons for arms exports to be stated."