If you pulled at one end of the historic thread of the ancient Red Sea route, you might be led as far back as the beginning of the Common Era, towards an almost historic inevitability of that powerful connection which brought the coins of Tiberius to Punjab and took Indian Ocean pearls to Rome, and situated ancient India at the heart of a corridor that wielded both economic value and geopolitical clout. But it is equally true that in the modern world, heads of state have never before convened deliberately around the high table at a global summit to pronounce a memorandum of understanding on an economic corridor.
On September 10 in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of India, President of the United States, Chancellor of Germany, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, President of UAE, Prime Minister of Italy, and the President of the EU unanimously agreed to establish the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).
The IMEC will be a route in the historic sense of the word (with the geopolitical and economic significance that entails), providing transport connectivity to accelerate the development and integration of Asia, the Arabian Gulf, and Europe as a new locus of global power. It envisions a reliable, cost-effective railway and ship-to-rail transit network to supplement maritime and road routes, enabling goods and services to move between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the EU. IMEC is India’s moment.
But it will also be the cornerstone of economic progress across the region by supercharging regional trade, and connecting Asia with Europe through a region that has never, since the ancient Red Sea route, been considered for such connectivity despite its game-changing potential in terms of shorter transits, accessibility, and multimodal connectivity.
The maritime corridor between Asia and Europe currently remains rooted in the saturated Suez Canal and Mediterranean shipping routes despite being longer and involving additional logistics costs. It takes 11 days to sail from JNPT in Maharashtra to Suez port, and six days to Dammam. An additional 24-hour transit by railway could land consignments at Haifa, saving three to four days of transit.
IMEC, which promises shorter routes, is a breakthrough. It links major ports of western India including JNPT, Kochi, Kandla and Mundra with major shipping ports of the Gulf, including Jebel Ali, Fujairah, Ras Al-Khair, Dammam, Duqm, and Salalah. From these ports, cargo will be transported by the Saudi rail network on their north-south line to the port of Haifa in Israel through Jordan. Haifa, being a deep seaport, can handle bulk container trains and post Panamax ships which after transhipment, carry cargo to European ports like Piraeus, Kavala (Greece), Trieste, La Spezia (Italy), Marseille-Fos (France), Barcelona, and Valencia (Spain). Road container trailers or container cargo trains will thereafter transport goods across Europe.
What this mammoth task will take needs to be clearly understood.
IMEC is envisioned as not one, but two corridors — an eastern corridor linking India to the Arabian Gulf and a northern corridor linking the Arabian Gulf to Europe. Both ends have robust port, rail, and road infrastructure.
India, whose connectivity infrastructure has helped it become the world’s fastest-growing major economy, has a massive, well-integrated railroad network, mega ports, and highways on the eastern end of IMEC. Mega infra projects for augmenting capacities — dedicated rail freight corridors, highways, expressways and ports — are at various stages of development. On the western end of IMEC, beyond Haifa, the sea route across the Mediterranean is also a well-charted path to Greece, Italy, France, and Spain, and well served by hinterland connectivity to Europe by rail and roads.
Therefore, our focus must be on the land bridging requirements from the Gulf ports to the West Asian ports on the Mediterranean, including the connectivity to the major gateway port of Haifa in Israel. Based on the MOU, it is safe to assume that transhipment of cargo will be from ships to railways and railways to ships. This means constructing missing rail links, terminals, and inland container depots (ICDs) at all major Gulf and Mediterranean ports.
Connectivity to Gulf ports will be operationalised by the under-construction rail network of the Gulf Cooperation Council to connect Kuwait with Muscat on a north-south coastal rail system. Although this will connect the gulf ports, exit across Saudi Arabia will only be possible on the Saudi Arabian Rail (SAR) network connected to Saudi ports and operational to the borders of Jordan by a robust heavy-haul railway system. SAR, which already runs heavy and long-haul freight trains from Saudi ports in the Gulf, will bring down logistics costs, making this land bridging extremely efficient. As the SAR network ends on the Jordan border, the missing link from the last SAR railhead at Al Haditha to Haifa becomes the most crucial challenge of IMEC.
From the Saudi border terminal of Al Haditha to Amman, rail connectivity is already being planned. Connecting Amman to Beit She’an in Israel will also require a rail link to be developed by Jordan. This infra project is in its planning stages. Israel has also planned to connect Haifa to Beit She’an via Jenin near the Jordanian border. Haifa port too shall have to augment capacity to be able to handle additional cargo that would divert to this route instead of the longer Suez Canal route. It is thus most critical for Jordan and Israel to build the required infrastructure in a time-bound manner to make IMEC work.
What would make this corridor really tick is uniformity of railway networks on standard gauge, unlike other regions where consignments get delayed due to transhipment necessitated by change of gauge on two systems. The connectivity of the missing links on IMEC from Haifa to Al Haditha will be of standard gauge, enabling seamless connectivity. It may also be considered that no mega transport corridor can be viable by depending only on the end-to-end traffic. The Suez route already provides the maritime (albeit longer) corridor for Asian-European traffic. Therefore, IMEC must consider connecting hinterlands by developing the feeder rail routes which could merge on the main corridor. This has a multiplier effect on all stakeholders.
As states have already signed on, commitment of resources from stakeholders and multinational financial institutions like the World Bank will not be an issue as the financial returns on investments promise to be high. The returns for green and sustainable growth cannot be discounted either. IMEC, unlike any other corridor, envisages the laying of cables for electricity and a pipeline for transporting clean hydrogen. The greening of this project will contribute to the global effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
As a sum of these dividends, IMEC has incredible potential to integrate India, West Asia, and Europe on a collective path to growth at an unprecedented scale. And it is a historic moment for India as a regional leader that can bring up an entire regional economy through the combination of its technical leadership and outward-looking approach. India can support the rail projects of GCC, Jordan, and Israel through its PSUs like IRCON, RITES, DFCC, RailTel, and CONCOR.
The IMEC has a head start — multilateral unanimity, clear dividends for the economies involved, and the brass tacks of a firm commitment at its inception stage. As the next step, a working group of experts from the railway sector, ports and shipping, and communications needs to develop a plan of action to address physical and non-physical barriers, design, financing, legal and other regulatory requirements.
A comprehensive IMEC agreement with a clear time frame will help translate the commitments of the MOU into a roadmap for action. A mega global initiative like IMEC is only the beginning. As a strategic catalyst for a new way of thinking about collective growth, globalisation, and connectivity — Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in the truest sense — this new corridor will trigger regional and global cooperation initiatives for socio-economic development across continents, benefitting millions.
The writer is former Member (Traffic), Railway Board, Ministry of Railways
The maritime corridor between Asia and Europe currently remains rooted in the saturated Suez Canal and Mediterranean shipping routes despite being longer and involving additional logistics costs. (Illustration by CR Sasuikumar) 
Share
