Swift Freight International, headquartered in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone, is celebrating 18 years of providing logical, multimodal transport solutions to the freight logistics industry.

Founded in 1989 by logistics veteran Issa Baluch, Swift is an international freight forwarder and logistics provider offering competitive options for sea freight, air freight, sea-air combined transport, overland transport, perishable transport, consolidation and multimodal transport solutions.
From 12 employees at its inception, Swift now has over 500 employees, with 40 offices in 18 countries. The group turnover in 2006 crossed the $200-million mark.
“While our achievements in these 18 years have been tremendous in terms of growth, what has been most remarkable about our organisation is the local dominance we developed,” says Baluch, chairman and CEO of the Swift Group. At inception the company had just 12 people. It gained regional influence and now has global impact. “What a story!,” says Baluch.
The company says it is also proud to have been one of the first companies to reserve space in Dubai Logistics City (totaling 28,800 sq m) for a purpose-built logistics centre. Swift will also have an additional 25,000 sq m airside facility at the new World Central Airport to provide smooth air connectivity for shipments.
The Swift 5 logistics centre, located in Jebel Ali Free Zone, is currently being built to provide an additional dry storage area of 5,450 sq m, with over 12,500 pallet positions and variant temperature possibilities. A new two-storey office block is also being built adjacent to the warehouse expansion for the ever-growing needs of customers. The expanded warehouse will feature a wireless guided, state of the art Very Narrow Aisle system that is controlled by a base station. The racking system has been designed for maximum efficiency of movement and is also flexible enough to be configured to any customer’s requirement.
In addition to logistics, warehousing and distribution, Swift provides a variety of freight forwarding services that focus on the African trade lane. The expansion of Swift’s network in India and the Far East, combined with the opening of more countries on the African continent and the consolidation of Swift’s infrastructure in Dubai, has positioned the organisation to create a major transshipment hub for goods from the Far East and India into Africa.
Moreover, Swift has recently implemented a new ERP system to link business functions across offices worldwide, including the UAE, the Far East, India, and some parts of Africa. The same system will be fully implemented on the African continent by December 2007.
Contemplating on Swift’s success over the past 18 years, Baluch says: “I always say that this is not a job of just one person, but a dedicated army of colleagues who are determined to succeed in whatever they put their hands on and this is joy in its best setting to me personally.”
Swift will soon announce the opening of new offices in Indonesia, Singapore and the USA.
Commenting on the company’s achievements, he says Swift pioneered innovative logistics solutions into Africa. SAM (Sea Air Model) is the first multimodal solution into that continent. It is a cost-effective scheduled service with estimated transit times that result in better planning and faster business cycles at reasonable cost. Surelines, on a similar note, is a scheduled NVOCC, LCL service into Africa. SPL (Swift Perishable Logistics), operating from Dubai Flower Centre, offers African farmers and traders, via Swift’s wide branch network in Africa, an excellent opportunity to export perishables around the world.
Swift is ISO 9001:2000 certified, has over 80 international industry awards, and enjoys continuous recognition from governments and partners.