24/01/2017 07:29 AST
Agility expects positive financial impact from its investments of Dh100 million in Abu Dhabi this year.
The company, which plans to invest in three areas, will invest the amount in building a new distribution centre in Musaffah industrial area and plans to add 50 trucks to its fleet.
"The third area is expansion into Kizad (a logistics park), we are taking a plot of land, and developing it to offer logistics solution," Bassel Al Dabbagh, chief executive officer at Agility told Gulf News on the sidelines of a round-table.
When asked about the financial impact of the expansion on the company's financials, Al Dabbagh said "we will see good impact from 2018 (on our financials). We have our plans, we are bullish, and we hope our plans materialise."
The region's largest logistics provider recorded a net profit of Dh50 million Kuwaiti Dinars on revenues of Dh1.1 billion in 2015.
"We are committed to this region, and we see the economy going into cycles, and when the cycle is on the downside, we don't investing, in fact we increase our investments," Dabbagh said.
The company is also setting up a new warehousing facility in Dubai. Agility has more than 10 offices across the UAE, with 5 offices in Abu Dhabi and 4 in Dubai, and one in Fujairah. The company has about 2, B000 employees in the UAE, and plan to increase headcount due to expansion.
box on Logistics index:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ranked number one in the category of best business climate out of 50 ranked emerging markets according to findings in the 2017 Agility Emerging Markets Logistics Index.
UAE was followed by Qatar in second place, Oman in third and Bahrain in fourth. Saudi Arabia ranked 7th and Kuwait 10th, the company said.
"The UAE has taken a strategic view of its development outside the energy sector and continues to improve its attractiveness to logistics providers and their customers," said Elias Monem, Middle East and Africa CEO of Agility Global Integrated Logistics. "The low energy prices of recent years have prompted other Gulf states to do the same."
The index, now in its eighth year, offers an annual snapshot of industry sentiment and ranks the world's leading emerging markets by size, business conditions, and transport infrastructure and connections. It includes a survey of more than 800 global logistics executives.
Gulfnews
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