Dubai ports operator DP World is targeting Africa, Iran and Latin America for future growth, its chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem told reporters on Thursday.
“We are very interested in emerging markets and Africa is top of our list of places where we would like to expand, as well as the Pacific side of Latin America,” he said.
“Africa has a huge global advantage, significant construction activity and we are studying locations for potential expansion.”
In particular, he said, DP World is working with Sengalese authorities to develop a free zone in the African country and is in talks over possible locations.
Bin Sulayem said under official plans, the new free zone would be positioned either next to the relocated national airport, or the port, and he was hopeful it would be the latter.
“We are in discussions with the government over plans for the new free zone and are interested in attaching it to the port, no doubt,” he said.
Iran, too, presents significant opportunities for DP World: “We want to expand in the Caspian as well as the Gulf strait as this would connect us with the Silk Road trade route.
“We are talking with the Iranian authorities and are very interested in this market – it has big growth potential.”
DP World, which operates a portfolio of more than 65 terminals across the world, announced its results for the first half of 2015.
It reported a 21.9 percent net profit rise – helped by the acquisition of logistics infrastructure firm EZW (Economic Zones World) – to $405 million.
Revenues were up 14.5 percent and capital expenditure guidance for 2015 remains unchanged at between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion.
Bin Sulayem told reporters growth in Asia-Pacific had been particularly strong despite uncertain market conditions, and insisted that the company had yet to see any impact from China’s stock market meltdown this week.
“Markets are unpredictable,” he said. “We have ports in China so we will be watching the situation closely. It is too early to tell if there will be an impact.”
Meanwhile, the expansion of the Suez Canal will help to spur the company’s growth in future – “it allows us to travel both ways, and this is good news for shipping as we can travel much faster,” Bin Sulayem said.
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