Page 184 - 7X PR REPORT - OCTOBER 2025

FedEx Express

FedEx arrived in the Middle East in the late 1980s and built its regional headquarters in Dubai during
the 1990s. Its latest move, a $350 million regional hub now rising at Dubai South, adjacent to Al
Maktoum International Airport, cements the company’s faith in geography as strategy.

The site sits within minutes of Jebel Ali Port, creating one of the world’s densest air-sea logistics
clusters. That proximity allows FedEx to move containers directly from ship to aircraft under bonded
transit, linking Indian manufacturing, Gulf consumption and African markets in a single loop. It is
the practical expression of the Gulf’s old boast about being midway between East and West: in
FedEx’s case, that midpoint has become a precision-engineered supply chain.
Saudi Post

Once a conventional postal service, Saudi Post, now rebranded as SPL (Saudi Post and Logistics),
has become a cornerstone of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 logistics push. Its strategy turns Saudi
Arabia’s geography into advantage: a landmass bridging the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf, and
borders with eight countries. New hubs in Jeddah and King Abdullah Port handle west-facing trade,
while Riyadh functions as a central GCC gateway and Dammam connects to the UAE and Bahrain
by road.

Through digital upgrades, AI-based route mapping and national tracking systems, SPL has cut
domestic delivery times below 24 hours and strengthened links with partners such as UPS, DHL
and China Post. The transformation is geographical as much as technological. Saudi Post is using
the kingdom’s sheer scale to position itself as the region’s land bridge between continents.

Shipa Delivery

The newest entrant on this list, Shipa Delivery, was launched in 2018 by Kuwait’s Agility Logistics as
a digital-native courier for the GCC. Based in Dubai and Kuwait, Shipa treats the Gulf’s geography
as a single urban space. Every primary market—Riyadh, Dubai, Doha, and Kuwait City—is within a
one-hour flight or a day’s trucking. Shipa’s technology platform leverages this proximity to deliver
cross-border next-day shipments, integrating customs data and predictive analytics. In practice, it
is digitising the geography that older couriers learned to fly over.

SkyNet Worldwide Express

Founded in London in 1972, SkyNet expanded into the Middle East in the 1980s via franchise
partners in Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Its decentralised structure mirrors the region’s
fragmented regulatory map: each national licensee adapts to local customs rules and free-zone
incentives. That flexibility allows SkyNet to link Africa, the Gulf and Asia through whichever
gateways are most efficient at a given moment, Bahrain for air freight, Dubai for multimodal, or
Jeddah for Red Sea access. It is logistics designed for a world where borders still matter but can be
navigated.

https://www.logisticsmiddleeast.com