At Summer Davos in China, Mideast firms look to next generation to repair the Gulf

China may be seen as a potential mediator in the Middle East but economic integration within the region is more likely to drive change there, according to observers at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian.
The “Summer Davos” gathering in Liaoning province this week comes as Washington and Tehran try to reach agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The two countries have agreed to halt fighting “on all fronts” for 60 days, following almost four months of conflict set off by coordinated US and Israeli air strikes inside Iran.
Corporate leaders at the meeting said that with the wartime destruction, there was a massive need to rebuild – and opportunities.
Mazen Darwazah, executive vice-chairman of Jordan-based Hikma Pharmaceuticals, said destruction across Iran, Israel and the Gulf states had left a “big bill”, but also offered a historic opportunity for a new generation.
“We failed in politics. Maybe now, hopefully, with the new generation [we] can work together,” Darwazah said, suggesting that educated local companies were now far better equipped than in previous decades to independently lead rebuilding efforts.
This sense of urgency was accelerating long-delayed connectivity projects.
Khaled Sharbatly, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s Desert Technologies, said long-standing plans for regional rail networks and electricity grids were gaining rapid momentum as governments pivoted from treating the Middle East as a mere trade corridor to an industrialised, value-added hub.
“I believe that the opportunity is massive,” he said.

Lina Noureddin, managing director and CEO of Bahrain-based Lamar Holding, added that recent maritime threats had “opened the eyes of everybody”, accelerating investments into alternative land routes and logistics hubs, even as existing public-private business structures proved surprisingly resilient.
Yet the economic push faces steep geopolitical headwinds. Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, described the Middle East as undergoing “a spring of turmoil”.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House in London, pointed to years of ambitious economic diversification and regional normalisation before the latest round of escalation.
She described the region as undergoing “an incredibly turbulent time” and said recent hostilities had dealt a severe blow to regional geopolitics, pushing trust to “an all-time low”.
Vakil noted that by firing on US military installations, along with civilian and energy infrastructure in Gulf states, Tehran had executed an “asymmetrical, horizontal response strategy” that intentionally projected the impact of war far beyond its borders.
The resulting strikes reached not only Gulf neighbours but also other countries, such as Jordan and Azerbaijan.

“The consequences were borne not just by Iranians, but by Iran’s neighbours,” she said, describing the retaliation as unprecedented and shocking.
Vakil added that deep-seated mistrust in both Tehran and Washington, compounded by domestic political factions and coming US midterm elections in November, made a comprehensive, near-term grand bargain unlikely.
Yet she argued that “geography is destiny”, meaning regional actors ultimately had no choice but to pursue pragmatic accommodation to keep vital waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz secure.
Against this backdrop of restructuring, China’s role is seen as a crucial but strictly defined variable.
Vakil noted that while Beijing could repeat the mediation efforts it had made in the 2023 Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, Middle Eastern states were fully aware that China’s investments remained tightly focused on economic security rather than entangling itself in regional political or military security.
Darwazah suggested that as traditional external alliances were being reassessed, a political “vacuum” was emerging – one that China might inevitably help fill, but mainly through commerce and trade.