Pakistan, May 13 -- The Middle East crisis has disrupted maritime trade routes and exposed a structural reality of the global economy. Currently, trade flows through several vulnerable corridors shaped by geography and geopolitics. Uncertainty is at its peak with the realisation that key shipping routes - the Strait of Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal - have become strategic bottlenecks. Any instability in these passages can destabilise the majority of world economies, some less so and others more severely.

The Strait of Hormuz is the most consequential trade corridor for energy and industrial commodities. Approximately 20% of global oil supply passes through the strait, and the recent crisis has reverberated across countries th...