Exporting to the Middle East

The middle east is often a turbulent region, however the countries which make up this area also have a long and rich trading history.The countries often included in this description are Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman,  Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.  Currently the UK exports significant amounts to this region from machinery to humanitarian goods and is anticipating increasing this further after Brexit in December 2020.  However both Syria and Yemen have been engaging in serious internal wars for several years  making shipping into them difficult.  Iraq is still very unstable in certain regions and Iran has significant economic and trade sanctions in place.

At AJF we offer export ocean freight services to most of these locations either directly or through our transshipment service in Jebel Ali, UAE. We can help with potential exporters with the action they need to take when looking at these markets. AJF can advise who they need to speak to help with documention and export licences.

AJF logistics services can handle full container load shipments

• 20ft and 40ft HC Shipping Line Equipment
• Flat Racks and Open Tops
• 20ft and 40ft HC Shippers Own Equipment

For consignments which require a shipper’s own container rather than using shipping lines container. We can either collect a shipper sourced container or  AJF can arrange the supply of a fully plated container. Once the container reaches its delivery destination AJF can arrange the disposal of the container or the shipper can purchase it directly from us. We move a lot of humanitarian and medical equipment in shipper’s own containers to several countries in this region. It is particularly useful for clients who are transporting goods to unstable regions where the goods may need to be stored for a long period of time until required. It is also suitable where the end user want to use the container as a distribution centre, or plan to repurpose the container for another use, such as an on site office.

For smaller consignments of pallets, drums and machinery we operate weekly Less then Container (LCL) services from the UK. As with some of our full load services we tranship some of the consignments in Jebel Ali, UAE. At our agents warehousing we consolidate these cargoes with other ones for shipping on to their final destinations. We do offer the service of re-working the goods in Jebel Ali, including repacking and re-labelling the goods. We can also combine shipments who arrive from several different locations around the world in to one consignment for onward shipping to a final destination in the region.

We offer limited airfreight shipments to this region for urgent goods such as perishables or very high value cargoes. Most of our airfreight services go to Dubai, Airport for onward distribution. Shippers should be aware the Coronavirus going around the world is reducing the number of flights and this is threatening to make these services much more expensive with limited space over the next few months.