Indian Ocean and Dubai (UAE). Chinese companies have made investments in several Indian Ocean ports, including Gwadar, Hambantota, Colombo and Sonadia. This has sparked a debate about the strategic implications of these investments. Small islands dot the continental rims. Island nations within the ocean are Madagascar (the world's fourth largest island), Bahrain, Comoros, Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sri Lanka. The archipelago of Indonesia and the island nation of East Timor border the ocean on the east. Heading roughly clockwise, the states and territories (in italics) with a coastline on the Indian Ocean (including the Red Sea and Persian Gulf) are: Africa Asia
Indian Ocean Research Group industries, NGOs and communities, towards realizing a shared, peaceful, stable and prosperous future for the Indian Ocean region. The Indian Ocean possesses considerable and often underrated geopolitical significance if only because of its operation as a highway. Given its relative location and the fact that it provides a relatively short and economic link between the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans it is perhaps not surprising that, not only does the Ocean account for the transportation of the highest tonnage of commodities in the world, but that more than three-quarters of this is extra-regional trade. The uninhibited maintenance of Ocean routes