BRICS & MENA: China’s Growing Influence In The Middle East: New Report

Five of the new BRICS member countries are MENA influential. In this special report we analyze how China, India and Russia are positioning BRICS to become a global entity with a special emphasis on the merging Middle East. We highlight Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE trade and development relations, and look at how the BRICS is emerging to become a global powerhouse with trade influence over 84 countries with a combined GDP of US$92 trillion.

Examples include Egypt, becoming a BRICS window to Mediterranean Europe – the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is financing Alexandria’s new metro system, while China and Russia both have free trade export manufacturing zones at Port Said.

Iran is developing as a transportation hub linking Europe, Russia, the Middle East, East Africa, Central and South-East Asia via the INSTC network, while Saudi Arabia is poised to do the same with proposed rail links west to Israel and its massive US$400 billion infrastructure finance deal with China.

Ethiopia is fast developing as an African auto-manufacturing hub with Russian manufacturers already setting up assembly plants, while the UAE is positioning itself as a regional financial hub with significant new trends in distributing regional and Asian infrastructure development finance. The GCC is negotiating a free trade agreement with China and Russia and signed off a CEPA agreement with India earlier this year.

This complimentary report, with unique regional trade data analysis, can be downloaded here.

Related Reading

• The BRICS and MENA
• The Middle East Foreign Investment Trends with Focus on the UAE