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Booming business: as the logistics industry continues to flourish in the Middle East, demand for material handling equipment continues to rise

With the number of warehouses being constructed in the Middle East constantly rising, demand for materials handling equipment throughout the Gulf reached record levels this year. The momentum is set to continue at least throughout 2007 and into 2008, with vast freight handling projects such as the current expansion of the Jebel Ali Free Zone already underway, and the completion of Dubai Logistics City on the horizon.

Of course this has been great news for Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Bahar, the region's leading provider of Caterpillar forklift trucks and major goods handling equipment. Indeed, the sales of materials handling equipment represented by Al-Bahar have performed exceptionally well, showing a healthy double-digit growth in 2006.

"The logistics sector has driven a huge amount of this demand," says Sudhir Tripathi, materials handling industry manager, Al Bahar. "The region's top selling products in the logistics sector reflect this assertion. Across the five Arabian Gulf countries we work in, the biggest demand continues to be for counterbalanced lift trucks up to five tonnes capacity," he explains.

The group has also seen an increasingly significant demand opening up in the sectors for heavier lift trucks, port handling equipment and specialised warehousing equipment cranes.

These products have seen substantial growth, and Al-Bahar has focused a great deal of attention and resources to these over the last five to seven years. "The Atlet and Landoll warehousing equipment, and Hiab and Terex cranes have steadily been gaining market share over the last 10 years, and the outlook for the coming years is very upbeat too," enthuses Tripathi.

The recent Materials Handling and Logistics Middle East exhibition in Dubai proved indicative of the appetite in the UAE and surrounding markets for the top-end hardware.

"Our theme at this year's show was ‘everything in materials handling' and we had an extensive display of equipment and services. The interest and feedback from visitors was extremely encouraging."

The exhibition attracted a record number of attendees and exhibitors and Al-Bahar selected the event as a showcase for the newest range of forklift solutions.

"We used the show to launch the new 8-16 tonnes N-Series forklifts from Caterpillar. The live demo of the Bendi narrow aisle forklift was also very well received and helped raise a lot of inquiries for the product."

The response received also indicated there were many buyers from across the region interested in new purchases, or upgrading existing warehouse fleets. Overall the group registered over 125 opportunities for equipment sales, from the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

Exhibition sales are often used as a suggestive barometer for industry appetite, and the performance of Al-Bahar would suggest the freight and logistics sector is in excellent and optimistic shape. "At the stand itself we sold four counterbalanced forklifts and secured two orders for lease with option to buy. With follow up, a few more units have been sold since and over the next two to three months we expect more of these to come in too. All these developments have been very encouraging and we have already decided to go even bigger at the next exhibition in 2009."

The burgeoning logistics and freight handling industry has obviously driven much of the group's recent business, and the future expansion of major facilities will see the Sharjah based firm targeting third-party logistics and inhouse warehousing and logistics companies in the free zones, ports and industrial areas right across the region.

Dealing with companies ranging from new operators to the biggest logistics heavyweights, the group has a unique insight into the trends and materials handling market in the Middle East.

"The main drivers that we see are effective utilization of space, safer handling of goods and enhanced efficiency in terms of faster or larger through-puts," explains Tripathi. "The average storage height has been increasing and we are now at heights of about 12 metres in some installations where our equipment work. A lot of the informed customers are also looking at minimizing wasteful aisles and transfer spaces and we see more and more narrow aisle equipment being put to work."

The firm believes in a strong after-sales service and operates, one of, if not the leading materials handling training facility in the Middle East. The Regional Training Centre at the group's Sharjah headquarters offers comprehensive customer training in maintenance, diagnostics, troubleshooting and repair. "We also provide consultation on lowering life cycle costs and back it up with training on equipment management and predictive repairs which is a vast field and requires detailed customizing as per each customer's requirements."

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