CHIMEA

An emerging hub of the global economy

Oceans have traditionally been the highways of trade, enabling the prosperity that tends to follow. From ancient times, the Mediterranean Sea facilitated the exchanges that nurtured the precocious civilization of Greece, that fed Rome and then carried the Crusaders and enriched Venice and Genoa. The Atlantic then became the great highway of trade that fed the explosive growth of North America, and more recently trade across the Pacific has become the most lucrative of all. Now there are signs that the Indian Ocean is taking its place in this maritime and commercial tradition—and also in the strategic rivalry that usually accompanies the generation of the wealth and resources that trade brings.