Ahsabsi: The Strait of Hormuz may be "useless" in five years.

Ahsabsi: The Strait of Hormuz may be "useless" in five years.

George Al-Hodeiri, CEO of Ahsabi Banking Group, said the Strait of Hormuz will be "surplus and underutilized" in the next five years with strategic investments being made into alternative routes.

According to Reuters, Mr Al-Khadari said on Tuesday: "We believe that this region can recover and then continue to grow." It will require a lot of investment."

"Of course, we wish and hope to see the resolution of this conflict... But maybe in five years the Strait of Hormuz will not be used."

America's war with Iran highlighted the world's strong dependence on this strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil and liquid natural gas passed.

This situation forces the border countries in the Persian Gulf to direct their resources to the development of energy transmission pipelines to the ports, and according to Mr. Al-Khadari, they will allow the region to withstand the consequences of the war. Citing data from Mead, a Dubai-based construction market information platform, AHSBC said yesterday that in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, individual projects worth $872 billion were submitted, which are part of $1.4 trillion worth of infrastructure projects. According to this report, planning has been done for this investment, but it has not yet been allocated.

At the same time, a recent survey conducted by Echsbase among more than 1,600 business executives and about 820 investors showed that they still find the Persian Gulf attractive for investment.

The World Bank predicted last week that the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan region will experience an economic contraction of 1.3 percent this year due to the war, after growth of 3.3 percent in 2025, but a significant but uneven recovery is expected in 2027. Mr. Al-Khadari was one of those who were expected to attend the Saudi Arabian investment conference that was supposed to take place next week, but according to sources, his personal presence at this summit was canceled due to the Houthi attacks.