The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a proposed multinational infrastructure initiative aimed at upgrading connectivity between the three regions through integrated trade, energy, and digital networks. Announced at the G20 summit in New Delhi in September 2023, IMEC is envisioned partially as a counterweight to China’s international infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
Syria’s New Investment Law and the Return of State-Mediated Market Access
As Syria moves toward reconstruction, the country’s new authorities have already made a consequential decision about who will control the postwar economy. Last June, President Ahmed al-Sharaa enacted Investment Law 114 by presidential decree, granting sweeping and permanent concessions to investors. Yet rather than make those incentives broadly accessible, the law preserves the country’s longstanding model of state-mediated market access.
MENA Energy Recap, Q1-2026: Four Lessons From the Return of Tail Risk
This is a special edition of the MENA Energy Recap — a quarterly review of key energy developments that took place in the region from January through March of 2026 and what they signal in the months ahead. For Q1-26, the recap considers some of the long-term implications of the ongoing war in the region, which have caused the largest energy supply disruption in history, and what lessons these events hold for both near- and long-term energy dynamics in both the Middle East and the wider world.
In an effort to boost its economic competitiveness, Qatar is hedging its bets on emerging technologies. The Gulf sheikhdom, eager to diversify its gas-dependent economy, is cultivating various technological areas, notably artificial intelligence (AI).
COVID-19 presents a major threat to the global economy and the health of millions of people around the world, but its impact on Iran, one of the early epicenters of the outbreak, has been particularly severe.
COVID-19, the oil price war, and the remaking of the Middle East
The Middle East is facing an unexpected turning point. The region will not look the same after COVID-19 as it did before it. The geoeconomics and geopolitics of the world are in free fall because of COVID-19, the oil price war, and a severe economic shutdown. For the Middle East and the Gulf monarchies in particular, the oil price war against Russia and U.S. shale and the shutdown of economies around the world have increased the pressure on the Gulf’s already-depleted financial resources, which usually act as a safety valve for the turbulent region.
Saudi Arabia’s recent decision to call for an urgent OPEC+ meeting was driven by a simple logic. In spite of its obvious advantages over other oil producers, the kingdom is still taking serious risks as it pursues an oil price war.
The COVID-19 crisis could be deadlier than all the wars and civil wars in the modern Middle East. This should spur regional leaders to act urgently and cooperatively.
Amid political jockeying, militia fragmentation, COVID-19, and an economic crisis, Iraq's outlook is bleak
The different scenes in Baghdad tell the tale of a future that will, at the very least, present serious challenges, and at the worst could become chronically violent.
Cratering demand for Qatar’s main exports has reduced its income to a fraction of what it was last year, but its nest egg is held in very illiquid assets.
Algeria’s Hirak: A political opportunity in COVID-19?
As Hirak’s primary repertoire of contention has been biweekly protests in key cities, some worry that the COVID-19 lockdown is tolling the movement’s death knell. However, Hirak’s intellectual leaders have long called for supplemental tactics, noting that despite being among the most significant social, political, and cultural phenomena in modern Algerian history, protests alone may no longer be as effective as they once were in extracting meaningful concessions from the regime. Thus, as ill-timed and worrying as this feels for many of the Hirak faithful, the global health crisis may come as a significant political opportunity for the movement.
Saudi Arabia’s oil price war could reshape the industry
Saudi Arabia declared a price war against Russia in early March to prove a point: that it can offer an unprecedented supply of 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd), way above the record 11 million bpd it reached in November 2018, and expand its market share at the expense of Moscow. As the coronavirus pandemic brings the world to a standstill, the question is how long it can sustain this war.
