The opening of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, which comprises the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India, the European Union, France, Italy, Germany, and the United States, was one of the key announcements made during the just ended G20 Leaders Summit in New Delhi.
The Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII), a cooperative initiative by the G7 nations to finance infrastructure projects in underdeveloped countries, includes the multimodal rail and maritime route.
The project calls for the installation of electric cables, a hydrogen pipeline, and a high-speed data cable beneath the sea that will connect India to the UAE and other locations in addition to the transportation infrastructure.
The corridor will comprise of two parts, the East Corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf and the Northern Corridor connecting Israel to Spain, Italy and France.
Speaking on the announcement, US President, Joe Biden called it a “real big deal”.
The project will consist of a sea route from India to the UAE which will then connect to Israel by rail via Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
From Israel the corridor will connect to Italy and Spain by sea and onward by rail to France.
The corridor will save time, fuel and overall cost of transport while being a game-changing enabler of trade and logistics across the world.
Incidentally, this announcement comes on the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative which not seen many new projects since 2019 when the country was hit by the real estate crisis.
