ZAHID HUSSAIN

The queues appeared before the statistics did. Lines at fuel stations have lengthened, transport schedules are thinning, and industries are adjusting output as energy uncertainty spreads. The Iran war is reaching Bangladesh not through geopolitics but through something more immediate: the availability and price of fuel, fertiliser, freight, and foreign exchange.

This is how distant conflicts reach globally integrated economies like Bangladesh. Geography offers little protection when trade, migration, and financial flows are tightly connected to the global system.

The most important transmission channel is the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG supplies normally move.

The corridor also carries significant volumes of petrochemicals and fertiliser critical to agriculture.

Disruptions therefore affect not only energy markets but food production costs -- an especially dangerous combination for developing economies already facing inflation pressures. For Bangladesh, this exposure is immediate and largely unavoidable.

A GLOBAL SHOCK HITTING ENERGY, FOOD AND TRADE AT ONCE

Global markets already reflect the shock. Oil prices have moved above $100 per barrel amid fears of prolonged disruption.