Gulf investment to turn inward to rebuild postwar infrastructure: QNB
Charles-Emmanuel de Beauregard, Qatar National Bank’s head of corporate and institutional banking, said that the Gulf countries will need to rebuild their logistics capabilities after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
PARIS — Gulf foreign investment is likely to turn increasingly inward over the next few years to fund infrastructure and logistics projects to help the region recover from the disruption of the Iran war, according to a director at the Middle East and Africa’s largest bank.
Charles-Emmanuel de Beauregard, Qatar National Bank’s head of corporate and institutional banking, noted that Gulf investment into Europe had increased over the last decade.
“We are in a paradoxical situation now, where the price of oil and gas is high, but these countries will need financing nonetheless,” he told a panel on Middle Eastern infrastructure and logistics at the fourth annual Vision Golfe event in Paris on Thursday.
The price of Brent crude spiked from around $70 a barrel and peaked at around $115 a barrel in May due to the US-Israel-Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial trade artery that in peacetime saw around a fifth of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas flow through it. Following a peace deal agreed between Iran and the United States that was signed on Thursday, oil has fallen back to $77 a barrel as of 10:40 a.m. EDT on Thursday. On top of the closure of the strait, crucial energy infrastructure in the Gulf countries was damaged by Iranian strikes during the war. To keep energy exports flowing, Gulf countries have resorted to alternative routes to Hormuz, both maritime and land.
