WASHINGTON, July 26: The impact of the Gaza war on the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), an ambitious initiative of US President Joe Biden, that creates an economic corridor from India to Europe via the Middle East is too early to know, the White House said on Thursday.
“For the IMEC corridor, I think it’s too soon to know whether there’s going to be a big impact on that. The president’s absolutely still committed to it,” White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters at a news conference here.
“We’ve still got the teams pulling together and working on that. It’s got great promise for infrastructure and investment opportunities across that whole corridor, not only just for the movement of commerce, but the jobs that it will create just in its establishment,” Kirby said.
As part of the initiative, the IMEC corridor is a proposed route from India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Greece. The announcement in this regard was first made on September 10, 2023 through a memorandum of understanding signed during the G20 Summit in New Delhi by the Governments of India, United States, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan and the European Union.
The project has been delayed because of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. (PTI)