German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has announced the opening of an overland route from UAE and Saudi ports in the Persian Gulf to the Saudi port of Jeddah on the Red Sea.

This cargo transit route through Saudi Arabia allows ships to avoid navigating through the Gulf of Aden, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and the narrow southern part of the Red Sea along the coast of Yemen.

Earlier, Israeli company Trucknet, which developed a digital platform for organizing cargo delivery, proposed to customers a delivery option from ports in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain through the territory of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel to Egypt, and in the opposite direction from Egypt to the Persian Gulf countries. The Israeli option allows bypassing the Suez Canal but, on the other hand, involves crossing three borders.