AMMAN/SINGAPORE: The war sparked by the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran and which has spread across the Middle East has cost Arab countries $186 billion, a top UN official said on Tuesday, as he called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

“We hope the fighting will stop tomorrow, as every day of delay has negative repercussions on the global economy,” UN assistant secretary general Abdallah Al Dardari told reporters in Amman.

“We estimate that the loss to the Arab region’s GDP as a result of one month of fighting will be around six per cent… Six per cent of GDP means the region has lost around $186 billion from its economy in a single month,” he said.

Al Dardari, who is also a top UN official for the Arab region, said the countries of the oil-rich Gulf were shouldering the heaviest burden.

Asia to be hit hardest by energy crisis, says maritime analytics firm

“The impact on GDP is very significant in the Gulf region, where it could reach $168 billion, and in the Levant region, where it could reach around $30 billion,” he said.

The war that erupted with a US-Israeli attack on Iran on Feb 28 spread quickly across the region, as Iran launched retaliatory attacks targeting Gulf countries and Israel.

Lebanon and Iraq have been drawn into the fighting, with pro-Iran groups launching attacks of their own on Israel and US interests.

Al Dardari warned against the Gulf’s economic dependence on oil, saying the crisis around the vital waterway of the Strait of Hormuz had proved the need to diversify.

He also said there was a need to seek out routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed pre-war.

“The Arab economy relies on virtually a single commodity; even countries that do not export oil depend on remittances from expatriates in oil-exporting countries and on aid from those same countries, while the oil-exporting countries themselves rely on a single product,” he said.

“This fragility in the Arab economy is demonstrated by recent events, which prove that it is unsustainable.” Dardari sounded the alarm over the expected impact on jobs in a region already wracked by inequality.

“We estimate that the number of jobs we will lose as a result of this conflict is around 3.7 million,” he said. “As for the impact on poverty, we expect that around four million more people in the region will fall, or have already fallen, below the poverty line this month as a result of the hostilities.”

Asia crisis

Asian nations are facing a major energy crisis as a result of the Iran war, with a sharp fall in crude shipments and few alternatives, global maritime analytics firm Kpler said on Tuesday.

“We think Asia will, for now, be the ones suffering the most,” Kpler president Jean Maynier said in an interview at the company’s offices in Singapore.

The war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb 28, saw Tehran effectively halt traffic through Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s crude supplies and a substantial amount of gas normally run. This has sent shockwaves across global energy markets, leading to price hikes for consumers worldwide.

Maynier said Asia did not have enough energy resources of its own to fill the gap “in China… in big countries like the Philippines or Indonesia. So it’s a real energy crisis.” The impact of the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already led governments to take exceptional measures, like the Philippines which has declared a national energy emergency, Maynier noted. “It’s really bad for Asia and we are not optimistic if the event continues,” he said.

‘No crude’

“There is almost no crude oil arriving” in Asia currently, and no viable alternatives to energy imports from the Middle East while “inventories are being depleted”, Maynier said. He said that while the attack on Iran had been anticipated, its timing and the duration of the war that has ensued were surprising.

“What is surprising is the length of this event and, especially in Asia, the crisis that we have now with energy.” Brussels-based Kpler, which was founded in 2014 and owns the MarineTraffic website, is considered one of the foremost data analytics and ship-tracking agencies in the world.

It has been keeping a close eye on the Strait of Hormuz since the attack on Iran. Iranian military officials have claimed to control the waterway and attack vessels from “hostile” nations, but Kpler said some are risking the trip.

Seventeen commodities vessels crossed the the strait over the weekend, 12 of them on Saturday, making it one of the busiest days for crossings since March 1, according to Kpler.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2026