Yemen has been well known as trade country since the ancient times .Ports such as  Mohka , Gana , and Aden were historically famous .Mukalla is small city lies on Arabian Sea coast . It is the capital of  Hudramout governorate .

The Maine gate not only for hadramout but actually for " Shabwah and Almaharah " governorates .All these mentioned principals above of strategic situation encouraging the port to  play, a navigational role through the past and nowadays  .        

Mukalla known as a trading center through it's port which carry  the name of the city. Marine demands started with old Mukalla harbour at 1903 as main port for the Quaiti Sultanate. '.Wooden ships were the sole mean of transporting. Maine ports cargo were loaded from Mukalla to Aden and East of Africa countries. Mukalla was famous with exporting goods such as " Tobaco , lime stones , dry lemons " to Aden port, East Africa  , Arabic Gulf countries and India  ports. Imported cargo was reached in the port from many world countries such like India , England , Japan and  East Africa .Shipping  increased due to the huge exchange of trade during the sixties and seventeen's  as statistics declared below .

In "1976" started anew era of  new marine patterns of transport. Containerized  cargo began and new quays were required to full fill the needs of this new demands 1978 an idea of construction  new port in Mukalla  was taken place . Khalf Harbor " is built to  handle all types of dry cargo at deep along side berths served by new available handling equipments . Port of Mukalla known as multi purpose port which receives , dry bulk cargo vessels , container vessels , general cargo ships , liquid  cargo ships RO/RO vessels and cruse  vessels ,reflecting an activity of  400 vessels calling the port of Mukalla and about 1100.000 mt.of different kinds of cargo imported and exported manually.