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DHL eyes new Nairobi office in Sh45 billion Africa expansion bid
DHL trucks. In the freight division, DHL is eyeing greater capacity in the renewable energy logistics and transport of perishable agricultural products from Africa to Europe and the Middle East.
Global logistics firm DHL Group is planning a €300 million (Sh44.9 billion) investment in its African operations, part of which will see the Germany-headquartered firm put up a new head office for its Kenyan unit in Nairobi.
The company announced the new investment in Johannesburg, South Africa during the launch of its latest logistics tracker report, which showed that Sub-Saharan Africa recorded the fastest growth in trade value in the first half of the year, ahead of the Americas and the Caribbean, driven by exports.
The investment will be spread out over the next five years, with the company saying it wants to enhance its capacity in key sectors including e-commerce, perishables, energy and life sciences and healthcare.
DHL runs its logistics business under five divisions, including DHL Express which handles courier business, DHL Global Forwarding which mainly deals with cross-border freight movement and DHL Supply Chain-which handles logistics services for specific businesses under contract. Others are Post & Parcel Germany, and e-commerce.
“For Kenya, we are finalising our new carbon neutral head office in Nairobi with a launch in the near future. It’s a big statement from an investment point of view for us in Kenya, and it also underscores the country’s importance for us in our growth agenda on the continent,” DHL Express Sub-Saharan Africa CEO Hennie Heymans told the Business Daily.
“The investment underscores how important this continent is to us at DHL, and how positive we are in terms of growth potential and opportunities.”
The company has however not indicated the specific share of the overall investment that will be spent in Kenya, although Mr Heymans said the larger share will be utilised in the courier division.
“The investments in DHL Express will include upgrading gateways, adding aviation uplift and extending time-definite coverage into second cities that are emerging as demand centres under the African Continental Free Trade Area,” he added.
In the freight division, DHL is eyeing greater capacity in the renewable energy logistics and transport of perishable agricultural products from Africa to Europe and the Middle East.
The company said it is making the investment with an eye on growing trade volumes in Africa over the next five years, which is likely to raise demand for logistics services into the landlocked countries though the key gateways such as Kenya.
In its DHL Global Connectedness Tracker October 2025, the company said that the Sub-Saharan Africa region’s trade volume is forecast to grow at an average annual rate of 4.3 percent over the 2025-2029 period, second only to south and central Asia at about 5 percent.
Kenya’s trade volumes are projected to dip by 0.8 percent this year, before rebounding to 3.8 percent in 2026, and growing to 6.9 percent in 2030.
However, despite the rosy trade volume outlook, the continent continues to suffer from numerous non-tariff trade barriers such as cumbersome customs procedures, import bans and numerous regulations, which have raised the cost of intra-continental trade and logistics.
As a result, the bulk of the projected growth is still expected to come from exports to countries outside of Africa, with imports of finished goods also pushing the volumes higher.
The DHL report found that Sub-Saharan Africa stands out as one of the regions where countries trade over unusually long distances, with a low share of trade taking place within the region.
In 2024, only 19 percent of the region’s trade was intra-regional, well below global leader Europe (68 percent), while its trade flows traversed an average distance of 7,074 kilometres.
