Barclays has identified a broader and more concentrated role for the Middle East in global supply chains than is commonly recognised, finding the region supplies more than 10% of the dollar value of world trade for 30 products beyond crude oil and gas.
Using a dataset spanning 2.8 million trade corridors and 1,200 products across 70 major economies, Barclays analyst Zornitsa Todorova said the bank’s work surfaces what it calls "material but underappreciated exposures across chemicals, construction, agriculture and basic manufacturing." The analysis, which relies on the latest UN Comtrade release, tracks flows from nine Middle Eastern exporters, including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Barclays emphasised the concentration is largely explained by the region’s role as a supplier of industrial inputs. Todorova wrote that the region’s importance is "driven by key reliance on industrial inputs." The bank defines "critical (or highly exposed) products as those for which these nine Middle East countries collectively account for more than 10% of the dollar value of total world supply."
Among the headline findings, Barclays reports the Middle East supplies:
- 62% of the world’s limestone flux;
- around 50% of global sulphur;
- 23% of nitrogenous fertilisers; and
- roughly 20% of key petrochemical inputs.
Beyond those aggregated statistics, the bank singled out vulnerabilities in specific sectors. In chemicals, Barclays highlighted products such as methanol, aromatics, phenols and polyolefins. In construction materials, the report notes limestone, gypsum and aluminium products as areas of concentrated supply. Agriculture is exposed through nitrogen, phosphate and compound fertilisers.
The bank also flagged more specialised but still meaningful exposures in metals, shipping and luxury goods, including aluminium, vessels, diamonds and gold. Barclays concluded that in those cases disruptions would "potentially re-route trade flows rather than eliminate supply."
Barclays pointed out that these industrial feedstocks and materials primarily flow to India, China and the U.S., underscoring how disruptions in the Middle East could have knock-on effects across multiple large markets. The report does not add numerical forecasts or new policy recommendations; it presents the trade-flow analysis and the concentration metrics derived from the UN Comtrade data.
By mapping granular trade corridors and product-level exposures, the analysis expands the conversation about the Middle East’s economic footprint beyond hydrocarbons to a broader set of industrial inputs that underpin manufacturing, construction and agricultural supply chains worldwide.