How the war on Iran is rewriting regional trade routes

As war with Iran redraws the map, the India-Middle East-Europe trade corridor bypasses Israel and the UAE, with Riyadh and Doha emerging as new hubs. | Contesto: cronaca

Punti chiave

• How the war on Iran is rewriting regional trade routes

Contesto

A new international freight corridor stretching 1,700 kilometers from Saudi Arabia's eastern province ports to the Jordanian border was activated on March 26, signaling a fundamental shift in regional trade routes as the war on Iran reshapes the Middle East's economic geography. Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) launched the route linking King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam, King Fahd Industrial Port in Jubail and Jubail Commercial Port directly to the Haditha border crossing with Jordan, with each train carrying over 400 containers and transit time cut in half compared to road haulage. The corridor is not a rival to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which remains mired in diplomatic paralysis, but rather the same framework taking a different route—one that bypasses both the UAE and Israel in favor of Riyadh and Doha. The IMEC was announced at the 2023 G20 summit in New Delhi as a counter to China's Belt and Road Initiative, envisioning an integrated rail and shipping corridor from India through the UAE and Saudi Arabia, across Jordan and Israel, and onwards to Europe via the Mediterranean. The UAE was positioned as the entry point for Asian cargo into the Gulf, while Israel, through its Haifa port, was widely presented as the bridge to Europe. However, Israel was never a signatory to the original IMEC memorandum of understanding, which involved Saudi Arabia and the UAE as the core land-side parties. Israel's centrality to the corridor was largely a projection by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government rather than a formal commitment any other party had signed up to, and the US-Israel war on Iran has exposed that positioning as untenable. Six weeks before the SAR corridor went live, Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) and Qatar Ports Management (Mwani) signed a memorandum of understanding covering eight areas of cooperation, from joint maritime corridors and shared regional distribution centers to digital transformation. Shipping from Qatar's Hamad Port to Saudi Arabia takes less than 24 hours, and transit northward to Jordan is now operational by rail. The corridor's new logic runs through Riyadh and Doha, with Asian cargo arriving at Gulf ports and...

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Categoria: cronaca