Latin America a market of strategic importance to DP World, which is handling $3.5 trillion worth of global trade every year, Sultan Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World, revealed today at the Global Business Forum Latin America 2022 in Dubai.
“Today we handle 75 million containers around the world and in value that is about almost 11 percent of all trade in dollars. It’s three and a half trillion dollars of cargo that moves every year into our terminals around the world. That’s four hundred thousand dollars worth of cargo every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” he said.
Bin Sulayem drew attention to the evolving role of his company that was enabling it to expand its services, saying that it had moved progressively from purely port operations to logistics and ensuring strong supply chains, with improving efficiency a key objective.
“DP World started out as a port operator – today, we are a logistic enabler. We don’t do just port operations, we do a lot of other activities in the supply chain. And the supply chain is the most inefficient business in the world today, one that has never been disrupted,” he said.
“What I mean by the supply chain is the journey from the factory to the showroom or the customer. This journey is inefficient because basically there are so many stakeholders that nobody has disrupted it. We are disrupting our part and are involved from the factory floor to the customer. We have invested in ports around the world and increased our penetration into activities that ensure cargo goes smoothly through the port,” he continued.
Bin Sulayem also spoke of the initiatives that DP World had put in place to combat the effects of the global pandemic and alleviate the huge impact that it has had on global supply chains.
“When the pandemic came we were restricted with how to interact with our customer, so we accelerated investment in digital platforms like CARGOES. This is the backbone of our communication with customers, where key people can book on cargo, they can ask for trade finance, they can receive a lot of services from us, he said.
“We also have Digital Freight Alliance, which is a platform where all the freight forwarders bid for cargo. So what we are trying to do is to tell every customer who uses us that today we put you in the driver’s seat in the supply chain,” he added.
The Chairman concluded his discussion by saying that Latin America was an extremely important market for his company and that DP World was committed to removing its logistics inefficiencies. However, he pointed out that the scope of their operations would be determined by the customers’ needs.
