Qatar Third-Party Logistics (3PL) Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Qatar Third-Party Logistics (3PL) market is expected to register a growth rate of over 6% during the forecast period of 2020-2025. For the country being one of the largest LNG suppliers in the world has supported the growth of the logistics market. Moreover, the country's LNG expansion plans support the growth of the market through the forecast period.

The country’s geographical location encouraging investment, laws, and stable exchange rate have majorly contributed to the sector’s growth. The Qatari government aims to develop the country into a new logistical and regional centre, with the country’s peninsular geography allowing its ports such to offer significant competitive trade advantages, particularly for oil and gas exports.

Qatar is expected to become a global centre for technology, life sciences, health care, logistics, and a hub for temperature and time-sensitive commodities with its well-developed airport infrastructure and services. The growth of the market can be attributed to the new expansion plans as the country is hosting the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Key Market Trends

Growth in Infrastructure construction sector to attract demand for 3PL services

Qatar is focusing on upgrading its logistics infrastructure particularly in the seaports, constructing regional and international logistics service centres, improving the efficiency of connection for other countries, thereby becoming a modern logistics hub in near future. As in February 2020, the ports authority is heavily investing in the development of ports and other logistic areas and planning to convert the available free area to container storage space to accommodate the growing demand. The ports authority has also acquired lands to build SEZ in the southern part of the country.

The State of Qatar is developing laws and regulations in the field of transport and has invested widely to develop infrastructure projects for the transport sector and its support services to keep speed with the changes and developments achieving Qatar National Vision (QNV) 2030 goals.

The investments have achieved a remarkable development for the maritime transport sector at every level and contributed to placing Qatar with a leading position and a distinguished reputation on the map of the global maritime sector.

Additionally, the government has agreed to take upon the development of huge projects such as the construction of a fleet of sporting stadiums of regional and international standing like the construction at the new Hamad Port. Hamad Port, Ruwais Port, and Doha Port together received 4,085 vessels and handled 1.34 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) containers during 2019.

Developments in the Warehousing Space

Qatar’s Warehousing Market is driven by the increasing government expenditure on infrastructure and surging demand from the FMCG sectors. Although after the difficult diplomatic relations with the neighbouring gulf countries like Saudi, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, Qatar is focusing on building relations with the Asian and European countries for trade relations.

Qatar’s new Public-Private Partnership (PPP) law, is expected to accelerate the participation of the private sector and foreign investors in various economic development projects in the country.

In Dec 2019, Manateq signed an MoU with Qatar Islamic Bank to aid "preferential financing" for its four logistics parks - Jery Al Samur, Birkat Al Awamer, Al Wakra and Aba Saleel and enable the investors to raise 60% of their project financing against land and personal guarantees from QIB. These facilities will aid the growth of the country’s SME sector who will be provided with additional incentive and benefits from a range of client services, unparalleled inter-connectivity, integrated infrastructure, an easy setup process, and financing.

Competitive Landscape

The market is fairly fragmented with a very few local and large number of international players active in the market. Some of the majore players include BDP International Qatar WLL, Aramex, Falcon Express (FedEx), Links Shipping and Cargo World contributing as the key players in the market.

Despite the challenges in the global shipping sector, the country is emerging as one of the bright spots. Transported volumes are increasing and global carriers are adding more services to the region as demand rises. Being in the midway point of China’s Belt and Road project, the country is expected to evidence an increased interest in container terminal developments.

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• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
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