KSA Is Now In The Driving Seat For the Bharat West Asia Europe Corridor Incorporating Road, Rail, Port ,Digital Connectivity & Backed By The US

 His Royal Highness Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), Crown Prince and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), (on behalf of his ailing and elderly father King Salman of the Royal House of Saud), has launched his State Visit to India on the 11^th of September 2023. This is his second state visit since February 2019.

This state visit has come immediately after MBS attended the very successful two-day G21 Summit, concluded on the 10^th. A number of new agreements are likely to be signed during the one-day bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi at Hyderabad House in the capital. Bharat and KSA have also become strategic partners and will be signing the minutes of the first meeting of a strategic council formed for the purpose. Bharat is presently Saudi Arabia’s second largest trading partner but the potential to grow it in quantum and volume terms is considerable. MBS clearly sees this, and is putting his policy heft behind this endeavour alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Agreements on defence, security, trade, services, labour, manufacturing, supply chains, energy, including alternate and renewable energy, agriculture, food security, digital technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), two-way investment programmes, cooperation in space, are some of the areas that will be covered.

Of course, the big new development at the G21 Summit is the massive infrastructure project announced. It was one of the biggest, important and immediately tangible announcements at the Summit. An integrated road, rail, port, ship, sea and digitally connected corridor leading from Bharat through West Asia overland as well as land/sea to Europe, will be commenced within 60 days by all the countries concerned. It will also link the regions it passes through with electricity connectivity and incorporate green Hydrogen pipelines.

It is inclusive of, and will involve, most of the countries in the West Asian region including the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Israel, and then on to Europe by land, as well as via Port Haifa in Israel and Port Piraeus in Greece. It is a massive project involving trillions of dollars in investment, expected to come from in-country resources, multilateral sources such as the World Bank and IMF, some private investment, all underwritten by the US, which is also a member of the I2U2 strategic initiative. It is likely to earn huge resources as well when completed. It has the potential of speeding goods movements from Bharat to Europe by as much as 40%, saving both time and money.

This new set of integrated routes will be an alternative to the overburdened and out-of-date Suez Canal.

The KSA was drifting away from the US after the controversies and criticisms  raised against MBS by America after the grisly murder of dissident Saudi journalist Khashoggi in Turkiye. So much so, that Saudi Arabia drew closer to China that even brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The KSA also did Yuan trades with China for its petroleum exports to the dragon.

President Biden therefore looked visibly pleased at the G21 Summit with Bharat’s initiative of this new Corridor that drew KSA, an old ally, back into the US sphere of influence.

The new and momentous announcement threatens the Chinese debt-trap creating Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and its recent growing influence in West Asia that even sought to mediate in the KSA War with the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Soon after the announcement of this new corridor, G7 member Italy announced its withdrawal from China’s BRI via its Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, very much present at the G21 Summit.

From the Bharatiya perspective, the straws have been in the wind for some time. Adani is already redeveloping Haifa Port in Israel. Haifa is famous from WWI as the place liberated by Bharatiya troops working in the British Empire Army. Those brave mounted soldiers are immortalised in a sculpture facing Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi, which was once the residence of the British Indian Army Chief.

Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a visit to  Athens, Greece, on his way home from Johannesburg where he had gone to attend the BRICS Summit. Greece was last visited by Bharatiya Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, way back, in 1983.

Piraeus Port development in Greece is also on Adani’s radar. Greece is keen on becoming Bharat’s gateway to Europe as expressed by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and President Karerina Sakellaropoulou during Modi’s day-long recent visit.

The Adani Group has been foremost in modern port development and green infrastructure projects in Bharat, and even coal-mining in Australia. It has been active throughout the last ten years, and even earlier, starting with the highly modern Kandla container handling port and terminus in Gujarat.

Indian Railways has reformed and revived its abilities and could well play a stellar part in the new West-Asian portion of the corridor.

India’s Reliance Industries, one of the world’s biggest petroleum refiners, is an early mover in the area of Hydrogen production and its application in transport amongst other things.

Officially called the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), it is being hailed as a modern-day Spice Route. It is expected to stimulate economic development throughout the Eurasian corridor. In the European section, participants include France, Germany, Italy, the US and the EU.

The MoU drafted at the New Delhi G21 has been signed by India, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union.

 In an initiative that will enthuse the 55 nation African Union, newly a part of the G21, the United States will simultaneously invest in a rail line from Angola in Central Africa, to the Indian Ocean.

China, that absented itself from the New Delhi Summit, is not only stymied diplomatically by these initiatives, it really does not have the money anymore to see its BRI dreams through as the sole financier. The 146 signatories to the BRI will, no doubt, begin to abandon it, following Italy’s example.

Saudi Arabia will play a pivotal role in the West Asian section of the corridor along with the UAE, Israel and Bharat. But through this back-to-back state visit, MBS who’s stopped in New Delhi since the 8^th of September, seeks to expand the strategic partnership with Bharat into multiple avenues. The endeavour is to take it far beyond being one of the world’s biggest petroleum producers. Bharat, on its way to becoming the 3^rd biggest economy in the world with a projected GDP of over $10 trillion, is equally keen on the win-win development.

 

(1,074 words)

September 11, 2023

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee