Dubai, an increasingly vital hub for transport and logistics sector, is firmly committed to becoming a global leader in this sector by 2015, said a top official of Dubai Aviation City Corporation (DWC).

DWC is one of the strategic projects for the government as it positions the emirate to be a commercial center and international logistics hub. It is considered to be one of the most ambitious projects in the world occupying an area of 140 sq m in Jebel Ali.

Outlining Dubai’s strategic focus on transport and logistics at the SITL Dubai 2009, a comprehensive industry forum in the region, Khalifa Al Zaffin, DWC executive chairman, said, 'Dubai is uniquely positioned to offer the world’s business community competitive supply-chain advantages that will help achieve improved customer care, reduced costs and an improvement in supply-chain predictability.'

“Located halfway between the time zones of London and Hong Kong, goods can now travel non-stop from Dubai to the entire world, including reaching a market of 4 billion people within an eight-hour flight,” he remarked.

The inaugural forum, held under the patronage of Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of Dubai Aviation City Corporation (DWC), played host to delegates from more than 50 nations.

Dubai World Central is an integral component of the city’s long-term vision of sustainable growth in the transport and logistics sector, Al Zaffin told the show delegates.

Dubai represents the trade, investment and knowledge hub for the Gulf, which has a young and vibrant population of 40 million and an economy that has grown three-fold in only five years to $1 trillion, he added.

The city is also in the heart of the wider Mena and South Asia region that stretches from Casablanca to Kolkata. The region is home to 1.6 billion people, or one-quarter of the world’s population, and has a combined GDP of $3.2 trillion.

The upcoming Dubai World Central community, Al Zaffin pointed out, has been designed to support the city’s aviation, tourism, commercial and logistics requirements until 2050 and beyond, representing one of the most important developments in the history of the country.

In line with its commitment to enhance the status of Dubai as an international hub for transport and logistics, DWC is hosting official delegations from Belgium, France and Italy during the course of SITL Dubai 2009. These high-level meetings are aimed at enhancing existing bilateral ties and exploring possible commercial partnerships in future.

“Despite the current challenges posed by the global financial crisis, long-term trade-flow patterns make Dubai an attractive platform to serve an array of worldwide markets, including the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States,” Al Zaffin opined.

“In this regard, it is important to note that Dubai is the ideal transshipment point to shift from sea freight to air freight – serving those markets overnight and reducing transit times. Today, it is possible to go from a warehouse in Dubai to a retail store shelf in Frankfurt overnight,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service