All routes lead to Mideast and Iran-Israel war won't shut down the 'Silicon Road'
iStock Asian companies are increasingly drawn to the Middle East, enticed by massive investments in diverse sectors like electric vehicles and AI
The big theme in Asian supply chains over the past decade has been relocation. Entire industries have sought to pare their reliance on China by shifting manufacturing to other low-cost destinations like Vietnam and India. Japanese carmakers and Indian pharmaceutical firms have chosen Mexico to be closer to American demand. More recently, however, a new route is emerging — from Asia to the Middle East.Speculation that the US is on the verge of joining Israel's attack on Iran may unsettle business leaders' current plans and delay activity along the corridor. However, as long as hostilities don't spiral into a catastrophic event, such as the closing of the all-important Strait of Hormuz to shipping, they are unlikely to derail the economic case for a reprisal of the historic Silk Road.
Asian firms are drawn to the Middle East because of the strong appetite in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to leverage their oil resources — and invest trillions of dollars in everything from electric cars to artificial intelligence. The emerging Silicon Road, as I like to think of it, is drawing top executives from Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei and Mumbai to opportunities in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha. Bankers from London, Singapore and Tokyo aren't too far behind.
The best evidence for the new passage comes from the 1,500-plus firms that Coalition Greenwich talks to annually across its Asia Large Corporate Banking and Trade Finance studies. In the latter, diversification, which has been high on the executives' priority list since President Donald Trump's first term, gained momentum last year, with 34% of the 700-plus respondents saying that they were tapping new locations, versus 29% in 2023. India and Vietnam were predictably high on the list of destinations. Japan also received some mentions because of the export advantage accorded by a cheap yen. But the presentation slide that piqued the most interest among Coalition's banking clients is one that showed Asia's burgeoning corporate-banking ties with the Persian Gulf.
The South Korean chaebols are well entrenched in the Middle East, across a gamut of old and new industries. The construction wing of Samsung Group was the primary contractor for Burj Khalifa, the landmark Dubai skyscraper. The Hyundai Motor Group's engineering affiliate has built nuclear-power reactors for the UAE. The conglomerate is now setting up a car-assembly plant in Saudi Arabia. The Korean internet leader Naver Corp. has built large-scale virtual versions of Mecca, Medina and Jeddah for better city planning. The Koreans' success has become a blueprint for others. Compared with 2020, 9% more of Taiwanese and Indian companies, and 5%-6% more of Chinese and Hong Kong firms, point out the Middle East as a market where they have outbound banking activities. This isn't a flash in the pan. 'Not only are more companies citing the corridor, they are using more banks to do business in it,' says Ruchirangad Agarwal, the head of Coalition Greenwich's corporate banking practice for Asia and the Middle East. In terms of usage, European banks' share of this corporate banking market is a stable 29%. That isn't surprising, given the long history of British institutions like HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc in both Asia and the Middle East. Even BNP Paribas SA — whose predecessor set up operations in China and India in 1860 — came to the Gulf region in the early 1970s in pursuit of petrodollars.The more interesting bit in the survey is a growing acknowledgement of Chinese and Japanese lenders. About 30% of banking and capital market assets in the Dubai International Financial Center hub are controlled by the top five Chinese banks. The Asia-Middle East corridor has emerged in response to the ambitious Saudi effort to curb the kingdom's reliance on oil. The $2 trillion that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may end up spending toward this goal will spur demand for everything from physical infrastructure to artificial intelligence software and data centers. Dubai, meanwhile, is getting readying for a flying taxi service.The picks and shovels for the gold rush will come from Asian firms. They will increasingly tap their home-country banks, or a regional lender like Singapore's DBS Group Holdings Ltd., for working capital. The European trade-finance specialists may have to work hard to hold on to their sway.
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