(AFP) — Europe, the Middle East and India will on Saturday unveil plans to create a modern-day Spice Route, boosting trade ties with potentially wide-ranging geopolitical implications.
The United States, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates and others will launch plans to link data, railway, ports, electricity networks and hydrogen pipelines across the three regions when they meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi.
Although heavily trade-focused, the plan could spur major political changes.
Signatories hope it can help integrate India’s vast market of 1.4 billion people with countries to the west, offer a counterbalance to lavish Chinese infrastructure spending, boost Middle Eastern economies and help normalise relations between Israel and Arab Gulf states.
The India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor is “nothing less than historic”, EU leaders are expected to say when the details of the plans are announced.
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