UPS has announced a new partnership on Tuesday to provide logistics at the 2020 World's Fair in Dubai, a venture it sees as a springboard to a bigger presence in the Middle East. UPS expects to hire 1,000 people to work at "Expo 2020" and will manage more than 27,000 square meters of warehouse space.

The event, the first world's fair in the Middle East, will run from October 2020 through April 2021. The shipping giant has been accelerating investment in emerging markets after determining in 2014 the company was "too much of an American brand," said UPS international president Jim Barber. In 2016, revenues from U.S. package deliveries were $38.3 billion, more than three times those of international package. UPS does not break out its financial statements by country, but chief executive David Abney said the Middle East is "much smaller" than Europe, which accounts for about 50 percent of the international business.

"The population is young, it's rapidly growing" in the Middle East, Abney told reporters. "We look at emerging markets much more about the future potential than the present size."