Economics

A closer look at the impact of domestic and international developments on Algeria’s agenda as the country prepares for a complicated and critical presidential race in December 2024.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and a number of Jordanian banks established the Saudi-Jordanian Investment Fund to channel $3 billion into the Jordanian economy. Two SJIF projects provide relevant case studies of the challenges facing Jordan’s broader efforts to attract more FDI and drive economic development.

Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa orchestrated a paradigm shift in Pakistan’s traditional geostrategic focus, transitioning from geopolitics to geoeconomics. His successor, Gen. Asim Munir, in command of Pakistan’s military for the past year, now faces the challenging task of turning Gen. Bajwa’s unrealized vision into a reality, a goal that requires cultivating positive interdependence and multi-alignment with a diverse range of partners, while also ensuring domestic stability.

At the September G20 meeting, host country India, along with the United States, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), signed a memorandum of understanding, a non-binding commitment to work towards building two separate “corridors”, essentially envisioning a political line that is connected by some new and some existing, or already under construction, physical infrastructure.

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and the latter’s ongoing military operation in Gaza have stalled progress in the development of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor and raised questions about its prospects for eventual completion. The IMEC faces multiple viability challenges, but none of them are insurmountable; thus, its participants are unlikely to abandon it.

The renewed violence in Gaza could not have come at a less opportune time for the climate agenda in the Middle East. From energy economics to environmental degradation, the ripple effects of conflict will complicate the path ahead.

Outside of the security risks brought about by war, the Israel-Hamas conflict has yet to result in major changes in the regional natural gas market.

In recent years, China’s presence in Egypt’s strategic ports has grown noticeably, including the involvement of both private and state-owned Chinese companies. While this reflects Beijing’s growing ambitions in the region, the opacity of the Sino-Egyptian agreements and the blurry lines between China’s commercial ports and its military aspirations raise questions about the potential implications.

With no new interregional or international gas pipelines currently planned, gas-poor Morocco should consider alternative import schemes, such as LNG import via ISO tank containers, utilizing its well-developed port, rail, and road infrastructure.

The state of Israel and the terrorist group Hamas are engaged in an existential conflict, each threatening the survival of the other, as well as the survival of civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli, caught in-between. The conflict could widen into a regional or even global crisis. For energy markets and the global economy, the risks are considerable and could swerve or accelerate in response to multiple variables.

Iran has yet to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement, but efforts to address the impact of climate change have great potential to create opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation, building on the recent trend of regional de-escalation. Climate diplomacy represents an untapped opportunity for Iran to engage globally by incentivizing it to adopt the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in exchange for sanctions or debt relief.

As the original Abraham Accords signatories — Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain — observe the third anniversary of their September 2020 agreement, there is a sufficient basis to evaluate whether the Abraham Accords are real, hype, or something in-between. Much like the case a year ago, the results so far remain mixed.