Oman’s Port of Salalah has confirmed an increase in container volumes over the past month as a result of companies re-routing business to the port in the aftermath of the closure of maritime space in the UAE to Qatar.

Ahmed Ali Akaak, deputy CEO of Port of Salalah, tells MEED they will now work on being able to lock in some of these new businesses over the long-term to help sustain the port’s future growth.

“While we continue to hope for an early resolution to this issue, we would also like to [take this opportunity to] showcase our capabilities compared to our neighbouring ports,” the executive says.

The company is now looking at multiple strategies, particularly by growing import and export trade, to win more shipping lines to use the port.

“We need to work on efficiency and costs to be able to compete effectively with [Dubai’s] Jebel Ali [port],” Akaak says.

While Oman currently offers some of the best port facilities in the Gulf region, Akaak said they need to have extremely clear and simplified but effective regulations to attract trade and industries to set up a base in the free zone located around the port.

“Almost every country in the region is eyeing investments in their respective region…. many of these countries like India have a local population with an increasing level of disposable income that can serve as the demand anchor for these new investments,” the executive explains.

Access to markets like India is expected to offset Oman’s relatively small population and demand for goods that are produced at its free zones.

While the transshipment of containers and handling of aggregates are expected to remain the core of the port’s business in the near term, Akaak says they are also pursuing a number of initiatives and projects, which are at various stages of discussion, to leverage the port’s existing connectivity and location and reduce the overall reliance on the transshipment business.

Container volumes at the Port of Salalah grew close to 30 per cent in 2016 while general cargo volumes grew by 4 per cent. Revenues and net profit during the year also grew by over 10 per cent

The port’s container terminal handled 3.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2016 against a total capacity of 5 million TEU.