DP World to expand freight-forwarding network to 180 offices by end of year

Global ports operator DP World plans to expand its freight-forwarding network to 180 offices around the world by the end of this year, as it seeks to grow its supply chain services amid increasing disruption to global trade.

The company has opened 100 freight-forwarding offices over the past eight months, in the GCC and globally, and is planning an additional 80 offices by the end of this year, a company spokesman told The National.

The move aims to provide access to cheaper and reliable supply chains while helping customers navigate the complexities of global trade.

“A global freight-forwarding network provides our customers with local access to international trade and is a key part of our strategy to connect goods from factory floor to customer door … Our new offer covers 90 per cent of global trade so we can move anything, anywhere,” the spokesman said.

The offices – the latest one in Miami – “will be opened to meet customer demand and we continue to add branches across all regions around the world”, he said.

The move comes amid disruption to the world’s major trade routes and growing uncertainty stemming from two wars and presidential elections this year in about 40 countries, including the US.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have continued to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea. This has forced shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal, taking the longer and more costly route around the southern tip of Africa.

Global trade will probably fall short of its growth forecast of 3.3 per cent for this year amid slower economic growth and downside risks, the World Trade Organisation’s Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said last month.

Trade disruption is forcing businesses to rethink their supply chain strategies. Some executives have responded to geopolitical shocks by prioritising “friendshoring”, or moving vital manufacturing within the borders of ally countries.

The push to expand freight-forwarding services are “unrelated” to the Red Sea shipping attacks and are part of a “long-term strategy”, the spokesman said.

“Customers will benefit from a single-source solution to getting their products from the point of creation into the hands of their customers,” he told