BAHRAIN’S TWO STEPS TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT THE CARGO COOLING FACILITY

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In order to activate the Customs Co-operation Agreement between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the Kingdom of Bahrain signed on December 30, 2019, Bahrain Airport Services (BAS) initiated the launch of a project to modernise the cargo cooling units for air cargo parcels and goods located on the western side of Bahrain International Airport as well as improving the custom interface facilities.

The agreement creates a single-entry point that enhances intra-regional trade through co-ordinated and sustainable custom procedures. BAS has completed the development of the Cargo Cooling Facility at the airport. BAS worked to enhance and expand the facilities of the refrigeration facility to meet all the storage requirements of goods imported via airfreight into Bahrain.

National plans and positive impact

On the completion of the project, BAS chairman Nabeel Khalid Kanoo, said: “In compliance with the company’s fulfilment of the national plans related to the development of the logistics services sector, as well as the mutual agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the idea of modernising refrigeration units at Bahrain International Airport arose to ship cosmetics and later on pharmaceuticals to ensure their arrival with utmost quality due to the reliable storage unit/method.”

He added: “The aim of the newly developed facility is to facilitate the arrival of such goods imported from abroad to Bahrain International Airport, and then transporting them via land freight to the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia without the need of re-inspection. BAS is aware of the positive impact this step will have on increasing incoming shipments to Bahrain and enhancing the movement of freight and international transportation of goods through Bahrain, as many airfreight companies prefer to land in the Kingdom to transport their goods to KSA. The company has already received several trucking orders for KSA from prominent freight service providers including CargoLux and Lufthansa, which has boosted ground transportation business at BAS. This service has been activated to ship cosmetics as a first step, with future directions to include pharmaceutical preparations as soon as possible to meet the pharmaceutical needs in Bahrain and the region.”

Cold room expansion

Mohamed Khalil Ahmed, CEO of BAS commented: “The updates that were made to the refrigeration units included the installation of a Building Management System (BMS) in order to automate the building and achieve higher efficiency of automatic control and monitoring of all equipment and devices to avoid any technical errors that may affect storage safety.”

He added: “The sizes of the cold rooms have also been expanded to double the storage capacity in the cargo cooling facility to meet the demand for storing pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. Furthermore, two additional cold rooms have been added with a total area of 415 sq m, which has led to the separation of the cold store into three sections, one of which is specialised in storing food items, one for medicines and pharmaceuticals and lastly cosmetics. The project also included modernising the approved storage freezers to operate