Missiles in the Gulf could dim the lights in Dhaka

The escalating conflict in Iran and the Gulf region has exposed a structural reality: geography remains the ultimate arbiter of market stability. Nowhere is this more acute than the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime artery for 20% of global oil and a significant share of liquefied natural gas.

For Bangladesh, the implications are immediate and existential. The new government, led by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), took office just two weeks before a geopolitical storm now threatens its economic stewardship.

With its energy grid tethered to Gulf fuel and its currency supported by regional remittances, Dhaka faces a dual-front crisis of a threatened energy supply and shrinking dollar inflows.

The timing could hardly be worse. The new administration inherited an economy only just emerging from a painful stabilization phase. Under the preceding interim authority, Dhaka had begun to mend its tattered balance of payments through aggressive import curbs and reserve rebuilding.

Inflation was finally cooling and remittances were rebounding. But war is a ruthless editor of economic forecasts. The escalation in the Persian Gulf threatens to undo these gains, importing rapid energy inflation and maritime trade disruptions just as the new BNP-led government’s political honeymoon begins.

The most immediate transmission mechanism for this shock is energy. Bangladesh’s industrial engine and power grid depend on imported fuels, primarily LNG. With much of this supply sourced from Qatar and other Gulf producers, the logistics are nearly binary.

If the Strait of Hormuz becomes a combat zone or a shuttered gate, Bangladesh’s energy lifeline could vanish overnight. Indeed, official warnings are already circulating.

The vast majority of Bangladesh’s contracted LNG cargoes must transit the narrow strait. Even a marginal disruption — a few missed shipments — can trigger a cascade of power plant shutdowns, forcing the government to choose between crippling blackouts or a pivot to prohibitively expensive spot-market alternatives.

The broader global geopolitical arithmetic only compounds the peril. Because the Hormuz Strait handles one-fifth of global maritime energy traffic, any credible threat to passage sends global benchmarks sharply higher. Already, tanker traffic has faltered as insurers hike premiums or pull coverage entirely.

Shipping giants are rerouting, and gas prices are rising as producers, including Qatar, scale back shipments amid the war fog. For a net importer like Bangladesh, these price spikes directly assault the national budget.

The state heavily subsidizes energy, so higher LNG costs require either a ballooning subsidy bill that threatens fiscal targets or aggressive tariff hikes that punish consumers. Neither is palatable for the Rahman administration.

Rising power costs would feed immediately into manufacturing, logistics and food prices, potentially reigniting the inflationary fires policymakers thought they had finally doused.

Furthermore, energy shocks rarely remain confined to the power sector. Bangladesh’s main export machine — the ready-made garment industry — is built on the twin pillars of cheap electricity and clockwork logistics. The Iran conflict endangers both.

Bangladeshi goods destined for Western markets traverse a gauntlet of maritime chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandab and the Suez Canal. If instability migrates across these corridors, vessels must divert around the Cape of Good Hope, adding thousands of kilometers and weeks of delays to usual shipping times.

Longer routes mean higher freight rates and thinner margins for exporters already squeezed by global competition. In a sector where speed to market is critical, a sudden spike in logistics costs could see Bangladesh lose ground to regional rivals such as Vietnam or Cambodia.

The Bab el-Mandab, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, serves as the gateway to the Suez Canal. Should insecurity spread there, the global shipping industry would face a simultaneous blockade at both ends of the Middle Eastern corridor. For a trading nation whose primary seaport handles the lion’s share of external commerce, this is a systemic risk.

Higher insurance premiums and longer transit times will ripple through supply chains, inflating the cost of everything from industrial components to basic foodstuffs.

Yet the most visceral vulnerability may lie in remittances. Bangladesh earns billions of dollars annually from its migrant workforce in the Middle East, a flow of hard currency that buoys the balance of payments and supports millions of rural households.

A protracted regional war puts these remittances in the crosshairs. If Gulf economies decelerate due to infrastructure damage or energy disruptions, labor demand will evaporate, construction sites will go quiet and government payments will lag. Even a temporary dip in worker mobility could destabilize the central bank’s fragile dollar reserves.

The implications are stark. Remittances are Bangladesh’s primary buffer against external volatility. If that buffer thins while energy import costs surge, the country will face a renewed run on its foreign exchange reserves — the exact crisis the current administration is desperate to avoid.

This convergence of shocks — surging fuel bills, hamstrung exports and declining remittances — creates a dangerous macroeconomic triangle.

The immediate result will be a fast-widening current account deficit. Dhaka would be forced to hemorrhage dollars on higher-priced fuel while simultaneously earning less from its two primary engines of economic growth. Such an imbalance typically yields a weaker currency and paralyzed monetary policy.

In a worst-case scenario, Bangladesh could relapse into earlier turbulence, driven by strict import controls, currency devaluation and social friction.

This is not to say a full-blown emergency is a foregone conclusion. Much hinges on the duration of the hostilities and the resilience of shipping lanes. Markets are historically adept at rerouting and recalibrating after an initial shock. Even so, Bangladesh’s current predicament is a stark illustration of the fragility of globalized supply chains.

Simply put, a missile fired in the Persian Gulf can dim the lights in a South Asian factory, delay a shipment to a European retailer and eliminate a family’s income in a remote Bangladeshi village with cruel efficiency.

Bangladesh’s fragile recovery after 16 years of autocratic and corrupt rule was a fragile bloom of confidence. The Iran conflict now subjects that recovery to a trial by fire far sooner than anticipated. Ultimately, the geography of trade leaves Bangladesh at the mercy of events beyond its control.

Faisal Mahmud is a Dhaka-based journalist and analyst