Mr Morales said the deal would "open the door for Bolivians to have an international port, to use the ocean for global trade and for Bolivian products to have better access to global markets".

BBC: Peru deal gives landlocked Bolivia coast for own port

There had long been much more trade in the Indian Ocean than in the Atlantic, moreover, and China or India had never experienced an industrial revolution.

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From then on European merchants and imperialists invaded the Indian Ocean, grabbed much of its trade and began to take over its most valuable centres of production.

ECONOMIST: Historical geography

Forty percent of the world's population lives on the Indian Ocean rim, and Dubai is the financial crossroads for their growing trade and financial relationships.

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He tackles the big issues past and present, such as the formation of the Hanseatic League, set up to organise maritime trade, the slave ships which trafficked 11m Africans across the ocean between the 15th and the 19th centuries and the recent collapse of the cod fisheries.

ECONOMIST: The Atlantic Ocean

When European exploration began, Britain's more constrained crown left trade in the hands of privateers, whereas Spain favoured state control of ocean commerce.

ECONOMIST: Creating economic wealth

It enjoys immense natural resources and dominance of international trade routes to and from south central China and the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

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