Development Road Project: The UAE’s Alternative to the Suez Canal

After conquering the skies with a flag carrier—Emirates—that has become the largest in the Middle East (over 3,000 weekly connections from its hub at Dubai International Airport to 156 destinations across 6 continents), the United Arab Emirates now aims to take a leading role in overland trade routes as well.

This is the essence of the announcement made public in recent weeks, stating that the UAE has joined the Development Road Project, an ambitious plan to develop an interregional trade route alternative to the Suez Canal.

This is being hailed as a revolutionary development for international transport. In addition to the traditional isthmus of Suez, through which a large portion of goods has traveled from Asia to Europe for 150 years, a new corridor would be added, designed to connect the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, thus linking Asia and Europe through Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, and, indeed, the United Arab Emirates.

The project’s name itself says a lot. The “Development Road” will not be a new maritime route but a 1,200-kilometer overland path crossing strategically important trade cities such as Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, reaching the Turkish border and beyond.

The project, also signed by the UAE, involves a total investment of 17 billion dollars, necessary to modernize existing infrastructure (mainly roads and railways) and build new ones.

The United Arab Emirates, starting with Dubai and Abu Dhabi, have joined the initiative precisely because of their desire to become more central to the region’s trade routes, transforming into a true hub not only for the Arabian Peninsula. This ambition mirrors that of Turkey, which has joined the project to diversify trade routes to Europe and gain new prominence in the region.

The success of the project depends not only on the determination of its signatories and competition with Suez, but also on the outcome of other international initiatives, such as the completion of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), supported by the United States, India, and the European Union, which would pass through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel. However, that project remains stalled due to regional tensions and the war in Gaza.

In April 2024, the United Arab Emirates Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with his counterparts from Qatar, Iraq, and Turkey, outlining the primary interventions of the Development Road Project.

Among these is the construction of a series of high-speed railways to facilitate connections between the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Turkey. A key component would be the construction in Iraq of a high-speed rail line with trains capable of reaching 300 km/h, thus enabling rapid links between the UAE ports in the south and Turkey in the north.

The project also nods to China, which is interested in opening new trade routes and has become a strategic partner for Persian Gulf countries in recent years. From 2013 to today, the Chinese government and state-owned companies have invested 40.3 billion dollars in Saudi Arabia, 34 billion in the United Arab Emirates, 10.3 billion in Kuwait, and 6 billion in Qatar.

The new trade route project confirms the dynamism of the United Arab Emirates in the large-scale infrastructure sector. The small geographic size of the Gulf emirates does not limit their ambitions for growth and development, which focus precisely on building major projects.

This is a market where the Webuild Group has been active for decades, completing around 30 projects across various sectors, including iconic works like the Grand Blue Mosque of Abu Dhabi (one of the largest in the world) and the Jebel Ali M desalination plant, one of the most significant globally in its industry, providing Dubai with 636,400 cubic meters of drinking water daily.

“The United Arab Emirates,” said Webuild CEO Pietro Salini on the “Business with Lubna” program on Sky News Arabia, “is a rapidly developing reality that continues to invest heavily in the infrastructure sector, driven by a strategy of economic diversification and the need to support population and tourism growth.”

This forward-thinking and ambitious strategy is now looking to new international routes alternative to Suez to secure a role in the high-stakes game of global trade.