Author: Paromita Dey

Stefano Pollotti Managing director, Gefco Middle East “It’s not going to come as a shock to anyone that the past year has been something of a challenge. And I think ‘challenge’ is the right term for it. 2016 has not been a disastrous year, it has been a time for potential client building, re-establishing relationships and making the most of the time to foster new partnerships. For many organisations, whether in logistics, manufacturing, heavy industry or services, this should have been a time to consolidate and keep heads above water but it should not have been a deal-breaker, as long…

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Mahmood Al Bastaki CEO, Dubai Trade What was your greatest challenge in 2016 and how did you overcome it? We anticipated the depressed global economic outlook and took measures to diversify our revenue streams through new customer acquisitions for our flagship products – Dubai Trade Portal Framework and Rosoom. We continued to look for innovative ways to address the needs of our customers and by adopting new technologies to improve our service offering. What do you predict will be the key trends and events that will shape the regional logistics industry in 2017? 2017 will be another important year for…

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Ruth Waugh International business development director, Twintec Middle East Regional Office How did business perform in 2016? Twintec established a permanent office in the UAE this year and following the hard efforts during 2015 laid more metres squared of ‘jointless’ SFRC floor slabs than any other year to date in the Middle East region.  Logistics operations represented a large proportion of this volume. The greatest challenge we had to overcome was responding to the large increase in enquiries for Twintec’s unique design and build service. We believe this was  a result of clients having poor warehouse floor slabs previously due…

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Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem Group chair and CEO DP WORLD What do you predict will be the key trends and events that will shape the regional logistics industry in 2017? While we don’t forecast, Drewry says 2017 global port throughput will be 2.4%. Drewry’s forecast for 2017 global fleet growth is 5.9%. Short term turmoil caused by Hanjin’s bankruptcy (i.e. $14 billion-worth of goods have been held up in the supply chain) is temporary. Drewry believes it signals the bottom of the market. Meanwhile, conditions for recovery in the medium term are improving, so long as carriers encourage them wisely.…

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2016 was a year characterised by the surreal and unbelievable. On the global stage we saw the election of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, likely triggering a sustained period of unpredictable and unprecedented foreign policy and trade deals. In Europe the UK’s vote to leave the EU shook markets and stirred caution as who is in and how is out of the  single market, continues to be a point of disagreement in Brussels. In Turkey a failed military coup gripped the world and has since led to the arrest of thousands of citizens, with small scale violence and bombings continuing…

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