MSC links West Africa to Red Sea loop + Dubai targets autonomous logistics rollout

MSC stitches Africa to the Red Sea

MSC ties West Africa to its Red Sea loop: Global shipping firm MSC has merged its West Mediterranean-West Africa and West Mediterranean-Red Sea services into a single rotation — linking Valencia, Barcelona, and Tanger Med with Abidjan, Tema, Logo's Lomé, Ghana's Takoradi, Cameroon's Douala and Kribi, as well as Congo's Pointe-Noire and Matadi before continuing to Jeddah and Aqaba, Al Mal reports. The combined service is designed to improve vessel utilization while retaining direct connections for consumer goods, industrial cargo, and agricultural exports.

The logic is network density: MSC can now pool Europe-Africa and Europe-Red Sea cargo on the same vessels instead of operating two overlapping services from the western Mediterranean. It builds on the Europe-Red Sea-Middle East Express MSC launched in May — which connected European ports directly with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, alongside multimodal links into Gulf markets.

Dubai doubles down on autonomous logistics

Dubai is putting a joint venture behind its autonomous-logistics ambitions. SHIFFT — a new tie-up between the Dubai Future Foundation and UK self-driving firm Oxa — is targeting a first commercial rollout of driverless vehicles across the emirate's ports and airports before the end of 2027, according to a press release.

Autonomous logistics is gaining traction in the UAE: The Abu Dhabi Investment Office inked a raft of commercial deployment agreements for autonomous mobility tech in November 2025, including for logistics plays, while UAE-based autonomous delivery startup CargoX raised USD 250 mn this past June.