FUJAIRAH: China is likely to remain the Middle East’s top energy partner despite high economic growth and a population boom in India, delegates to the Gulf Intelligence Energy Markets Forum 2017 decided.
Before a debate on the relative advantages of India and China, 42 per cent of delegates believed India would outpace China, with 58 per cent convinced China would maintain its top spot.
After a spirited — and sometimes humorous — discussion, the pro-China team of Irena Heaver, partner at Fichte & Co, and Victor Gao, Chairman of the China Energy Security Institute, carried the day, with the post-debate poll indicating they’d increased China’s support to 69 per cent.
Rakesh Mehra, Strategic Advisor at Gulf Petrochem, said recent economic reforms in India — including demonetisation, the General Sales Tax and its digitisation programme — could see India’s growth increase from 7 per cent to double digits. Furthermore, India had long and deep ties with Gulf nations.
His pro-India teammate David Worral, an independent energy consultant, pointed out India was about to embark on massive infrastructure improvements that would hugely increase its energy needs, whereas China’s infrastructure boom was ending.
But Gao pointed out that China’s economy was four times the size of India’s, which would require many decades to equal it, and China was already involved in strategic partnerships with Gulf countries.
India might outstrip China in the Middle East’s eyes, Gao admitted. “It’s possible. Philosophically speaking, everything under the sun is possible. We need to ask the real question, it is probable that it will overtake China as the partner of choice? And in what time period?
“I would answer that in our lifetime the probability of India overtaking China as the partner of choice for the Middle Eastern energy sector is next to zero.”
