Multinational logistics company DHL Group on October 15 announced an over €300-million planned investment in sub-Saharan Africa. The announcement was made during the DHL Group's ‘Global Trade Shifts – Spotlight Africa’ media tour, held this week in Johannesburg.

The multi-year initiative will be deployed across DHL Supply Chain, DHL Express and DHL Global Forwarding to expand infrastructure, enhance service capabilities and unlock opportunities for businesses across key sectors including e-commerce, perishables, energy and life sciences and healthcare.

DHL Supply Chain will add capacity and transport-led solutions, with a focus on the transporter sector and life sciences and healthcare, including additional temperature-sensitive capability to support critical healthcare flows and fast-moving fulfilment as supply chains mature, particularly as demand for third party logistics services continues to grow in the core South African market.

“DHL Supply Chain is expanding in South Africa as the economy gains momentum and supply chains become more sophisticated. We are seeing growing demand for specialised, outsourced logistics, particularly in life sciences and healthcare and across the transporter sector.

“By adding capacity, strengthening transport-led solutions and applying our contract logistics expertise, we will help customers improve service quality, manage risk and scale with confidence,” DHL Supply Chain Middle East and Africa CEO Orkun Saruhanoglu says. 

Across DHL Express, the investment will include upgrading gateways, adding aviation uplift and extending time-definite coverage into second cities that are emerging as demand centres under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

As the only integrator with a dedicated air network in sub-Saharan Africa, Express aims to link these cities more tightly to Africa-Europe and Africa-Asia lanes, building on recent growth in Ethiopia and Nigeria.

“Our focus is to be closer to customers and make cross-border shipping simpler and more reliable. As trade expands, businesses are asking for predictable transit times, consistent delivery performance and support that understands local conditions. By raising the bar on service and proximity, we will help more African companies trade efficiently and compete on a bigger stage,” DHL Express sub-Saharan Africa CEO Hennie Heymans.

DHL Global Forwarding will focus its investment on strengthening key industry solutions that are driving Africa’s trade growth.

The division is expanding its capabilities in energy and industrial projects, supporting Africa’s role in the global energy transition; enhancing cold-chain and perishables logistics for agriculture and horticulture exporters; and scaling its expertise in life sciences and healthcare with specialised temperature-controlled transport.

These enhancements aim to build on DHL’s established freight forwarding network and customs expertise across major African trade lanes connecting the continent with Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

DHL Global Forwarding Middle East and Africa CEO Amadou Diallo said the group is strengthening forwarding solutions with deeper local expertise and enhanced digital tools, to give clients clearer control of their shipments from origin to destination.

Heymans highlighted that DHL is the only company that has presence every country in Africa, and moreover, with it having a dedicated air fleet, provides a competitive advantage to streamline access to, from and within the continent 

DHL is also investing in programmes that extend participation in trade and support sustainable growth.

Through its GoTrade initiative, the company provides small and medium-sized enterprises with training and customs expertise to access international markets.

Moreover, the business is piloting renewable energy and alternative fuel projects across its facilities in sub-Saharan Africa and advancing digitalisation through AI-enabled monitoring, route optimisation, and digital customs tools aimed at reducing friction in cross-border trade.

This investment follows a previous regional one of over €500-million announced for the Middle East in June, as covered by Engineering News.

The publication reported that DHL was pursuing other investments and expansions in African markets, aligned to its Strategy 2030, which prioritises growth regions and geographic tailwinds engendered by shifts in global trade, and also as part of its aim to capitalise on the opportunities presented by this region.

GLOBAL HUB
The latest update of the DHL Global Connectedness Tracker, released in partnership with New York University (NYU) Stern on, shows that during the first six months of the year, the sub-Saharan Africa region achieved the world’s fastest trade value growth, driven by exports rather than imports. The region ranked first on exports value growth and fifth on imports value growth, the tracker’s Africa Trade Highlights supplement shows.

At the level of individual trade lanes, the largest absolute trade value growth in US dollars during the first six months was exports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to South Africa, followed by Ghana to South Africa, Angola to South Africa, Zambia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria to Togo.

Meanwhile, according to the tracker, sub-Saharan Africa led all world regions in the first half of the year with a 10% year-on-year increase in trade value (in current US dollars), ahead of North America at 7% and South and Central America, Caribbean at 5%.

Current forecasts as of September indicate the region’s trade volume will grow by an average of 4.3% per year over 2025 to 2029, the second-fastest globally behind South and Central Asia. This is, however, a slight reduction from the 5.3% growth originally projected before tariffs.

“Africa is at a pivotal moment in its trade journey,” said DHL Express CEO John Pearson.

“Despite global volatility, the continent continues to show resilience and momentum. Our investment reflects confidence in Africa’s trajectory and DHL’s commitment to enabling the trade flows that drive inclusive growth. By strengthening our network and capabilities, we aim to make it easier for African businesses, from small and medium enterprises to large corporates, to compete on the world stage.”

The tracker’s composite forecast projects a 2.5% annualised growth rate in global trade volumes from 2025 to 2029 – roughly matching the pace of the previous decade.

One reason why trade can continue growing even as the US raises tariffs is that only 13% of global goods imports went to the US in 2024 and 9% of exports came from US, and another is that most countries have not followed the US in implementing broad tariff increases, the tracker shows.