Indian Ocean trade

Indian Ocean trade served an important role in history, and has been a key factor in East–West exchanges. Long distance trade in dhows and sailboats made it a dynamic zone of interaction between peoples, cultures, and civilizations stretching from Java in the East to Zanzibar and Mombasa in the West. Cities and states on the Indian Ocean rim were Janus-faced. They looked outward to the sea as much as they looked inward to the hinterland.

In the contemporary period, the re-assertion of Asia’s cultural, political, and economic strength has manifested itself in varied events such as the meteoric rise of the Chinese economy and the growing influence of India’s culture industry, and the rise of Dubai as a global financial hub. These processes indicate a gradual movement of the fulcrum of global economic and military exchanges away from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, a shift which is being keenly watched by national elites and global institutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_trade