Our History
GAHTANI INTERNATIONAL MARITIME AGENCY (GIMA) was founded in 1989 under the leadership of the then young Sh.Khalid Al Gahtani in association with Mr. Raju Varghese who is a veteran in shipping and logistics business with over 4 decades of experience across the MENA region. GIMA was established as a shipping and logistics subsidiary of the HAKA Group which was then known as M/s Hassan Abdul Karim Al Gahtani & Sons.
GIMA was established to serve the growing food security requirements of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The first vessel we handed was MV SKADARLIJA which called KING ABDUL AZIZ PORT – Dammam on 22nd January 1990 with 10,534 tons of sugar. We started providing agency services for vessels calling King Abdul Aziz port carrying rice, wheat, sugar and onions for human consumption. Later on we extended our services to other grains such as corn, soya bean meal, barley etc used for producing animal feed. Over the years we have developed our expertise to cater the needs of our clients as well as ensuring a smooth discharge by providing additional logistics services such as customs clearance, supply of equipment’s for discharge, transportation of the cargo as well as interim storage for the cargo to name a few.
Over a span of 3 decades GIMA has provided its services to vessels calling Saudi Arabian Ports carrying various bulk cargoes such as barite, bentonite, soda ash, iron ore, copper slag, bauxite, clinker, feldspar etc as well as general cargoes such as jumbo bags, palletized cargo, boxes, steel pipes, machineries, heavy equipment’s etc.”