Project Cargo Professionals
Mohammad Jaber: A New Chapter With Combi Lift & Mapping the Future of Project Logistics
27 Jan 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What motivated Mohammad Jaber to transition from a global logistics firm to Combi Lift?
We are dealing with all the carriers and all the other players in the market are totally independent and totally neutral. We will be disruptive for the people that think they can do everything in the world. And we'll be collaborative with the midsize and smaller companies, be creative in solutions that help us to be profitable and cheaper.
It's Project Cargo Professionals. We're back in Dubai for another episode of Voices of Breitbach Middle East. And today I have the pleasure of being with Mohamed Jaba, CEO of Kombi Lift Projects. Mohamed, how are you, sir?
I'm great. Thank you for this nice new idea.
Not at all. Thank you for being part of it. And thank you for coming in.
Thank you.
So we'll get on to your new role in a second. But I know you're from Jordan. So for people who don't know much about Jordan, tell us a little bit about Jordan.
Oh, that's nice. Jordan is a museum. If you could have a time and can go for a trip of like seven days or ten days, I promise you, you're going to see a marvelous thing every day, on top of the great hospitality of the people, the nice food over there, and amazing things, Dead Sea, baptism area, Betra.
It can be a great time for the people, for their knowledge, and to meet very nice people and culture.
So you're a good ambassador for Jordan.
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Chapter 2: How is the project cargo market evolving in the Middle East?
We are just growing, right? We are approaching them as a supplier. They are registered in our system as a supplier, and we are registered in their system as a customer. So it's based on market dynamics. They are totally neutral. And we are also having a good relationship with all other carriers. So we see how it will be good first for the client. So our mission is to service the client.
And the client needs to be excellent in technicalities and in commercial. Who can bring that balance between technical and commercial, who would be more successful to secure the jobs. So this is why we are dealing literally with everyone in the market. However, We are offering the market a little bit something different. And I always thought about it.
It's the collaborative forwarding, the collaborative shipping. we can work together. And we can reach to good business partners. So majority of those jobs, I'm working with different forwarders, different carriers, and bring value to the client.
be able to segregate the job and split it across the service provider in a way that everyone do where he's good at and he can make little bit of a profit. So he don't have to suffer in the areas that he's not strong, that someone else can do it. And this is sometimes where projects doesn't make money because he makes it somewhere and lose it in the other hand in another region.
So if I come to integrate those together, I found a room where we can improve the project profitability, improve the price to the client and the KPIs. And I think it's starting to find its way. And the clients start like, OK, let's see this. Let's understand what this guy is talking about. And that's good because we have good relation with everyone. And we want to keep it that way.
And when you look at this region here in the Middle East, where do you see the momentum building for Project Cargo?
Actually, our region is mainly driven by UAE and Saudi for the volume and the value of the projects. But we are seeing a lot of development in Egypt, in Qatar, in Oman, Kuwait soon. However, the magnitude is much bigger in Saudi and UAE, onshore and offshore. And just a couple of days back, we heard that Saudi and USA, they are in an alignment for a nuclear power development in Saudi.
That itself would be a massive project. i was part of the logistics service providers pool for the nuclear power in uae and i saw how much volumes and accuracy precision and timeline so that was 10 years of logistics so looking at the situation in saudi depends i don't know yet the size and and more details because just a fresh new uh
news, but that would be in a magnitude that will really move the needle.
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Chapter 3: What role does engineering creativity play in project logistics?
Payback period for even the ship working fantastically could be 10 years. So the speed of development will be determined by how much we can use the edge of technology to optimize the cost elements by using better engines, less emissions, less fuel consumption, smarter bookings, better cranes, increase the throughput of the vessel, speed of the vessel. That's the name of the game right now.
That's something I actually also had a group done very well with their latest ships, Elise, where it's 19 knots speed. fully electrical cranes, two 800 ton cranes, and they've done a lot of improvement on the design which they've done in-house. That's for me when I attended the christening of the vessel, wow. That's something I didn't see so often in the market.
So how long those vessels will continue on fossil fuel? when someone this is our myth and already class but when we gonna see a major disruption for this industry then you will see a huge race and competition so i i still think there is a lot to be done in our sector to develop it and to reach where uh let me call it our potential
Hi, it's Aya Saeed here from BrakeBulk. Thanks for checking out Voices of BrakeBulk Middle East, our collaboration with PCP to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the event. For a decade, it's been the meeting point for companies driving the region's most ambitious developments, bringing together more than 10,500 industry professionals.
We're looking forward to meeting everybody at BreakBalk Middle East, taking place at the Dubai World Trade Center on the 4th and 5th of February, 2026. Don't forget, you can register online for your free ticket to attend. Enjoy the podcast and see you soon in Dubai.
This episode is brought to you in partnership with Haraket, proud sponsors of Voices of BreakBalk Middle East. Haraket has been moving the world's heaviest and most complex cargo since 1957, with a reputation for tailor-made engineering solutions. Headquartered in Turkey, they operate across three continents, with offices in 28 countries and a team of more than 1,000 specialists.
Their work spans engineered heavy lift, project transport, cranes and marine services, supporting oil and gas, petrochemicals, power, renewables, nuclear and infrastructure. Haraket is consistently ranked amongst the world's largest crane and heavy transport companies, with more than a thousand major projects completed worldwide and strong regional partners like Abu Dhabi Ports.
Find out more via the link in the description below. And a huge thank you to Haraket for supporting project cargo professionals. And I was reading a newspaper article that was saying how important it is for the Gulf states to have compute power, as they call it. So the AI data centers, all the infrastructure that's going on for the tech industry, and they hope that'll be a big export.
How exciting do you think that compute power is for the project cargo sector?
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Chapter 4: How are technology and AI reshaping project logistics today?
It's exponential. So what you're computing or able to compute from mid-90s till maybe 2006... All of it together maybe can be computed right now in one second. 10 years analysis can be done in a second. So this is why I think in 10 years, maybe I will not be a fit to be a Compilift CEO.
Maybe you'll find that 22 years old much better than me to lead such organization or even bigger organization unless I go back again to study and learn. to be competitive, not anymore with years of experience, but your brain with how many gigabytes works. Yeah. It's a continual improvement. Yes. This is life. Yeah. If we stop learning, that's the end.
Is there a market in the Middle East that you think people aren't so switched on that you think could be interesting from a project cargo perspective, the next market?
Yes, I'll tell you. Now the point, storage is the logistics, right? But I didn't see any logistics company right now here working in storing data. These warehouses, massive warehouses, they need a massive amount of cooling and power. And the region is growing its capabilities and capacity on power generation by clean energy or renewable or traditional means of energy, increasing infrastructure.
That means our region will, with those investments announced with trillions, they will need a lot of infrastructure and power, power plants, connectivity. And another area where I think it will be coming soon to the region, our region in the last few years wasn't really stable.
So the reconstruction of Gaza, the rebuild of Syria, as we see right now, massive developments in Egypt and on the Red Sea, what Saudi is doing. Hopefully, things get all over the region.
settle down and this dust and cloud goes away and we again align all our forces to into development as an effort infrastructure or technologies and healthcare and education then we're gonna face a lot of requirements in every sector and the projects It's either oil and gas or energy or civil, railways, whatever. Still, cargo, we have to move it, and we need to move it right and fast.
And if you could fix one challenge about doing project logistics in the Middle East overnight, what would it be?
That's, I need to pray for it. I wish the peace comes. We are tired of seeing TV from Gaza to Syria, now Sudan, and everyone in the world, and United Nations, Security Council. Like, we need peace. We need to live with peace. We need to coexist. Within the countries like this Let me go is not geopolitical.
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Chapter 5: Why is collaboration essential in the current logistics landscape?
Not to give you an insurance coverage and not to make finance. So how you make it? That's questions people working at. But Now we have to be able to come up with innovative solutions. What that means? Better storage planning, better way of moving cargo, better way for handling railways. We need to invent. Different way and more cost effective.
I work in a project for double tailing for example truck trucking with double tail That cut around 30 to 35 percent of the cost if you cut 20 percent for the customer from the price you make 10% additional and optimize your resources to optimize your Cost and less emissions, you've been so sustainable. So this is where I think that people need to focus.
To go more accurate, more competitive, you need to have more robotics, more AI, less errors, and you need to manage risk, not emergencies.
And we are seeing costs rise across the supply chain. So are those kind of AI and tech tools, are they already having an impact on bringing costs down?
Yes, but if I want to go and invent my own, and you need to invent your own, we will be 10 inventing our own things, right? And maybe none of them good enough. I think in a different way. I collaborate. So my operating system is one of the best in the world. I don't want to reinvent the wheel or create my own because I think I'm the smartest in the world, no.
I go to the best available on the shelf, then I start getting, building, kind of how I can call it interface and exchange data between this system and other systems that allow me to optimize man hours, the cost per file, and allow me to start reducing the number of minutes per file allow me to go for high accuracy and be away from I remember or you remember. I go for automation.
The RBAs, the Robotics Process Automation was good a couple, two, three years back. Now AI works a lot of things for you. So I think this is an important thing. to let us find where we can improve, then we have to decide internally among our companies that we really acknowledge there is an improvement area. Because if we think we are the best, tomorrow or the day after, we will not be.
So it's continuous challenge. Those are the tools that gonna pave the way for us to continue in the race of excellence.
And I know you're involved with the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce. Can you talk a bit about your involvement with that group and the work you're doing there?
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Chapter 6: What challenges does the logistics industry face in the Middle East?
Then it's ready. And now for how many years? This year it will be the first year I'm not involved in the logistics of Formula One. But I love it because it teach me something. And that converted part of me into the law of attraction start working. You have a team. You have a clear mission and a clear goal. You have a good team and precision.
All of the team aligned about every millisecond and what it worth. The precision and the competition. The successful team win by milliseconds. Only milliseconds. The second is the first loser. But what important for me that how they embrace failure. They lose, they win. First they enjoy all the time.
And they look at their failures, if he's second or third or the last, and what I can improve, how I can win next week. They never give up and they keep trying.
And as we start wrapping up, I thought I'd ask you a more lighthearted question. If you had to move to another country in the region, where would it be?
Oh, that's also a tough question because I'm living here for 25 years and UAE is a home for me. I love this country. I love everything about it. But if it's a necessity one day that I will go, I'll go back home. I'll go to Jordan because I feel between UAE and Jordan, it's like my heart and my brain. So I love both countries. And actually, UAE is a home for everyone.
How's Jordan doing these days, economically, business outlook?
Jordan in the heart of the region, like with all the situation happening in Gaza and all these challenges. But Jordan have something really nice, that all Arab community love Jordan and support Jordan. And Jordan invested a lot in education. We have a lot of people that have really good resources in the region. This is how you find Jordanian all over the region. They're doing good.
And I think with the potential of collaboration with the Gulf states, we are improving a lot. I don't know if you're looking, but a lot of the startups coming from Jordan A lot of the startups in the region originated from Jordan. Tech startups. Tech startup and many other startups in different sectors. Jordan have the most expensive is the human capital.
And this is where I remember King Hussein was always saying, and it's written everywhere, the human is the most important thing. the person, the people. So it's the most expensive thing we have. So they invested in the youth, invested in education. Rarely you can find someone in Jordan. We have a lot of doctors and engineers and everything. So it's so beautiful.
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Chapter 7: How does peace and stability influence project logistics development?
I think the event and the management are doing a great thing. They have a very good, big advisory board. They are adaptive. They listen to what's needed in the market and they are covering it. Since they started in Abu Dhabi for the first year till today, it's a different event, from very small to very popular. And it has an impact.
So we can see the case studies, the topics discussed, and how it is good ground and platform to bring new ideas. Some people, companies get jealous from each other because they see what other people are doing. So it's good to make challenges. Now, in the last couple of years, I see they are doing much better even than before. The engagement let me call it, with the industry, it becomes powerful.
And the team they have, they're really working hard to provide the people with rich content. So really you need to read the magazine and you wait in it and you can travel to attend other breakparks and the conferences because it's meaningful for our industry.
And when we meet again in 10 years time at the 20th anniversary, what do you hope might have changed either in your company or in the project logistics sphere in general? Change for the better.
10 years doesn't sound too long. But again, with the amount of technology we have, It will be so much long time. So do we really... I was participating in the Future Thinkers Summit in US. And they're talking about 2045. Like we can see 20 years. In 70s, they were talking about 20 years. With the computing ability we have today, we can talk about 100 years.
So 20 years start being a little bit anticipated, but... When you come to a break park, what could happen? I think it will be youth. You might not find me, you might find a new generation, not engineers. By the way, the universities right now, subjects like you never heard about, like my daughter studying intelligence systems and mechatronics engineering.
Those wasn't there in my time of university. Those guys, you will find autonomous ships. You will find BVLOS drones. It's not gonna be me. It gonna be the youth. It gonna be in this people right now, we need to quickly catch the talent from universities. Just give them the foundation and build momentum of knowledge, then they will do the jump.
And someone gonna do the jump that will be super disruptive. I wish he would be from our region. And a brake park, I would think that you will find holograms. Maybe you will be able to sit with people in a panel and part of these people in US and part in China, and you find them in front of you. You will be able to see autonomous cranes
showcases about autonomous vessels and robot do welding and the stiff dooring or going under deck is also done by a dog or a robot. It will be different. The railway is going to be integrated in every sector. 10 years is a good time. We will see a mega change. Our region is one of the best to be a global hub. If the peace comes and geopolitical
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Chapter 8: What does the future hold for project logistics and Combi Lift?
Thank you. Thank you so much. We are keeping humble, head down, focused on our work and collaborating with everyone. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today and I wish you all the best. Thank you so much. Thank you.