Indian Ocean Region: Malaysia’s Perspective

Indian Ocean (I0) is a body of water about five and a half times the sizeof the United States geo-strategically located between Africa, the Southern Ocean, Asia and Australia. As a coherent strategic space the region encompasses the basins of the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Within it lies a number of important international sea-lanes of communication (SLOCs).
These SLOCs are the shortest and most economical sea routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Substantial volume of international long distance maritime goods from the Persian Gulf, Africa, Asia and Europe pass through these SLOCs. They are used by more than half of the world’s merchant fleet including 30,000 tankers annually. Overall, they account for the carriage of the highest tonnage of goods.