Page 183 - 7X PR REPORT - OCTOBER 2025

From its hub in Riyadh and regional bases in Jeddah and Dammam, AJEX focuses on high-speed e-
commerce and industrial freight linking the Gulf and China, effectively turning Saudi Arabia into an
air-freight bridge between Asia and the Middle East.
Its strategy rests on proximity to both the Red Sea and Gulf coasts, enabling parallel trade routes
east and west.

By integrating Chinese logistics technology with Saudi infrastructure, AJEX offers next-day delivery
across the GCC and rapid cross-border services into Asia. In a region long dominated by Western
carriers, it signals a quiet rebalancing of logistics power toward the East, geography rewritten
through partnership.

Aramex

The region’s home-grown powerhouse, Aramex, was founded in Amman in 1982 and moved its
headquarters to Dubai in the late 1990s, becoming the first Arab company to list on NASDAQ. Its
success rests on understanding geography as culture as much as terrain. Aramex turned the Middle
East’s political and linguistic fragmentation into a network advantage: its hubs in Dubai, Riyadh,
Cairo and Casablanca form a web that covers the Arab world’s leading consumer centres without
dependence on European intermediaries.

By using Dubai’s free zones for re-export and Saudi Arabia’s central location for GCC distribution,
Aramex shortened regional supply chains that once routed through foreign ports. It is the first proof
that the Middle East could deliver itself.
DHL Express

DHL Express has operated in the Gulf for nearly half a century, and Bahrain remains its beating
heart. Founded in Germany in 1969, the firm chose the island kingdom as its Middle East and North
Africa base in the 1970s, an early recognition that the Gulf’s geography offered unrivalled reach.

From Bahrain, a freighter can reach Europe, Africa, or India within 5 hours. In 2024, DHL completed
a €218 million expansion of its 54,000 m² facility at Bahrain International Airport, with a broader
€500 million investment programme across the region to 2030. Bahrain’s location strategically
allows the company to bypass congested European routes and run overnight Asia-to-Africa transits.

Few firms have used geography so literally as infrastructure; DHL has made the Gulf’s centrality the
core of its global express rhythm.
Emirates Post

The UAE’s postal network, one of the region’s oldest, tracing back to 1909, has been reborn as a
logistics enterprise. Since corporatisation in 2007, Emirates Post has linked its nationwide branch
grid to Jebel Ali Port and Dubai International Airport, converting post offices into last-mile fulfilment
centres. The result is a hybrid model in which a state-owned service operates with private-sector
agility. The country’s limited size and advanced infrastructure allow Emirates Post to offer near-
universal same-day delivery, an achievement built on the UAE’s geography of proximity.

https://www.logisticsmiddleeast.com