Essa Al-Saleh

The Middle East offers "extremely lucrative" opportunities for companies that can exploit the region's emergence as a global logistics hub, says the CEO of Agility Global Integrated Logistics, Essa Al-Saleh.

Al-Saleh's comments at Transport Intelligence's (Ti) Emerging Market Logistics Conference, held in Dubai last week, are based on the findings of the Agility 2014 Emerging Markets Index.

In a keynote speech to the conference, Al-Saleh highlighted the outstanding performance of the Middle East in the Agility 2014 Emerging Markets Logistics Index. He said the region outperformed all others in favorability for business and trade in general. Qatar, UAE, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ranked highest out of 45 emerging markets in the category of "market compatibility".

"Against a background of a sluggish global economy, the Middle East continues to shine. The UAE is an attractive location for logistics investments based on ease of doing business, while Saudi Arabia's strong economic and population growth have also made it a market ripe for investment," Al-Saleh said. "Saudi Arabia continues to spend on infrastructure. It has been a star performer among emerging markets globally, taking third spot in the 2014 Index."

Al-Saleh explained Dubai has become a regional hub for business expanding into Africa. The UAE topped all other countries in the Index as having the best domestic and international transport infrastructure and best connections between the two.

New data presented at the conference by Ti supported the picture painted by Al-Saleh. Ti estimates that the contract logistics sector in the Middle East will expand 33% by 2017 - an average of 7.5% a year - to EUR3.15 billion (USD4.26 billion) from EUR2.36 billion (USD3.19 billion) in 2013.

Ti predicts that growth in freight forwarding in the Middle East will be even stronger - 7.8% annually until 2017. As a share of the region's international freight forwarding market, ocean freight is expected to grow to 57.8% in 2017, up from 55.2% last year.

The Middle East, which has emerged as a global logistics hub as countries, mainly on the Arabian Gulf, have built modern warehouses and transportation infrastructure, developed free zones, adopted "open skies" policies, simplified customs procedures and strengthened anti-corruption measures.

Download the Agility 2014 Emerging Markets Index for free by clicking here.

Established in 2002, the UK-based Transport Intelligence claims to be the leading provider of market research solutions to the global logistics industry.