Trade Corridors: The New Engines of Economic Growth
“Recent plurilateral partnerships––the Quad, the BRICS+, the I2U2, the BBIN grouping, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), the G20––alongside new age corridors and investment frameworks––India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), the Global Gateway, the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the Maha-Sagar––underscore the centrality of Asian and African economies, particularly within the Indo-Pacific geospatial construct. Simultaneously, these partnerships and connectivity initiatives are knitting a dense mesh of trade corridors and collaborative frameworks that interlink key Indo-Pacific economies with stakeholders such as Gulf nations and the European Union, signalling a new phase of global economic integration that must be South-first. India’s investments in the Chabahar, Haifa, Sittwe, Mongla, and Colombo ports; the domestic port expansion efforts of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates alongside their maritime infrastructure development and economic engagement in Africa; and national initiatives by key corridor partners along the INSTC’s Caspian Sea to address maritime infrastructure gaps and bottlenecks, all underscore the growing strategic focus on port development and maritime connectivity. At the same time, competition among Trieste, Piraeus, and Marseille to emerge as the dominant European landing port for the IMEC further highlights the centrality of these infrastructure efforts in shaping new-age multimodal trade routes.”
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/trade-corridors-the-new-engines-of-economic-growth