Kuehne + Nagel has relocated its Middle East regional headquarters from Istanbul to Dubai, and said it would be quadrupling the regional business in four years, reported the Khaleej Times.
    “This strategic move will support the realisation of the company’s ambitious growth targets in the region, and our mid-term target is to increase the bottom-line of our regional business by four times compared to a global target of two-fold growth by 2014,” said Reinhard Lange, chief executive officer of Kuehne + Nagel International.
     Kuehne + Nagel, which operates more than 900 branches across 100 countries, posted a turnover of US$17.63 billion in 2009. By 2014, the group’s strategy is to boost it to $41 billion while doubling its employee strength from 55,000 to 90,000, said Lange.
    The Swiss logistics giant said it was also on track to post robust growth in 2010 across all key segments of its operations including freight businesses through sea, air, road and rail as well as contract logistics.
    “Our growth is project to exceed the global market trends. In sea freight, Kuehne + Nagel envisages 15 per cent growth, in air freight 23 per cent and road and rail five per cent.”
    “Our target is to raise the share of Middle East business to 10 per cent of our global revenues,” he said.
    In Dubai, where Kuehne + Nagel has been since 1978, it will be expanding warehousing facilities at the Dubai Logistics Centre (DLC).
    “Dubai has always been of strategic importance to Kuehne + Nagel for bundling the flow of goods of our global and local customers and distributing their products across the entire Middle Eastern region as well as to Asia and Africa,” said Werner Kleymann, regional manager for Middle East, Central Asia and Turkey.
    “Due to the increasing demand for our integrated services, we will expand our site in DLC to a total of 32,000 sq m warehouse space. Recently, we modernised our 16,000 sq m logistics terminal in the Jebel Ali Free Zone,” he added.

Source: Cargonews Asia