Egypt is joining the "Land Bridge" bypassing the Red Sea, based on the “Trucknet” platform through Israel, as part of a global effort to deal with the Houthi threat over shipping lanes in the Red Sea.
The agreement of principles signed with WWCS from Egypt - through its president and founder, Hesham Helmy, honorary consul of Ireland in Alexandria and former chairman of the logistics giant Maersk Egypt – will allow the use of Israel's border crossings for the transfer of goods by land route, from the port of Dubai, through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to Israel, and from there, through the Mediterranean or land, to Egypt.
The land crossing through the border crossings approved by the Israeli government and the Ministry of Defense will be an express route, shortening the sea shipping routes by ten days, and will be used as an emergency response to the Houthi threat to the shipping routes in the Red Sea.
As part of the memorandum of understandings, it was determined that the parties will cooperate in order to provide the land transport of cargo on the "land bridge" route connecting the United Arab Emirates, through the ports of Haifa and Ashdod, or through Eilat to Egypt or other destinations in the Middle East, so that cargo shippers and transport service providers can make use of the “Trucknet” platform to optimize transport on this route in both directions.
Hanan Fridman, CEO of Trucknet, said: "This week, we completed the construction of the land bridge route that will connect the United Arab Emirates to Israel and Egypt. This is a historic economic breakthrough, which brings the economic and commercial cooperation between Arab countries and Israel to light in order to fight the "axis of evil". The purpose of the line is not to replace the Suez Canal but to be a complementary express route, which will serve as a bypass route for the Houthi threat in the Red Sea in times of emergency and will shorten shipping times by ten days in times of calm."
Fridman also added: "The cooperation and the high willingness of transport and logistics companies in the Arab countries and around the world proves that the ties that are being forged these days with Israel are in the common interest of all parties, which can and will lead to Israel’s transformation into a significant logistics traffic center on an international scale."
As part of the cooperation, Trucknet services for users of the land bridge route to Egypt will include automation of cargo transportation, real-time monitoring of trucks and the status of shipments, emissions calculations for each shipment, and more. The parties agreed that their cooperation during the contract period will be done on an exclusive basis, in such a way that any freight forwarder using the land bridge route to Egypt will do so through the Trucknet platform only.
The marketing of the land bridge services to Egypt will be carried out in the United Arab Emirates by Puretrans FZCO, in Israel by the company, and in Egypt by WWCS, and the Trucknet platform is available for use via a mobile application.