Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Shipay
Paul Maroun
Mechaalani
Paul Maroun Mechaalani has worked between China and the Middle East since 2012, from sourcing hydraulic components for heavy machinery to founding Shipay in Guangzhou, which works with businesses on sourcing and freight.
Explore his storyFrom industrial components to a company in Guangzhou
Since 2012 his work has followed one route: Chinese suppliers at one end, buyers in Lebanon and the wider Middle East at the other. What changed over those years was its scope, from industrial components to freight, and then to the trip itself as a problem worth solving. Shipay, founded in Guangzhou in 2025, is where that experience became a company, alongside the continuing development of the SHI-X app.
Industrial parts, then a trading company in Yiwu
The first sourcing work in China, in 2012, was in heavy machinery: spare parts, hydraulic components and hoses. Parts like these are ordered to specification, and the trade around them depends on getting those details right. It was an introduction to the practical side of the business: finding products, dealing with suppliers and building commercial relationships.
In 2015 he founded his trading company in Yiwu. A trading business of this kind sits between the two ends of an order: the buyer describing what is needed, and the factories able to supply it. It is the point where sourcing becomes a continuing commercial operation with its own suppliers, categories and customers.
Adding shipping and freight
Buying goods and moving them are separate disciplines. Around 2017 the work expanded from sourcing into shipping and freight, which carries its own concerns: routes and schedules, customs and documentation, and the handovers between everyone who touches a shipment. It extended the same line the sourcing had always run along, from Chinese factories to customers in the Middle East.
In 2018 he established We Import in Lebanon, coordinating international cargo between China and the region. Freight is judged on whether goods arrive as arranged, and bringing it into the business covered more of what an order actually involves for a customer, from the purchase through to the delivery.
Shipay in Guangzhou and the SHI-X app
Traders travelling to China arrive with a second set of needs alongside the cargo. Airport pickup, a hotel, local transport, bookings, food, exhibition visits and continuous support once meetings begin. Each piece was usually arranged by hand through a different person or service, and the trip held together only as well as that manual chain did.
Shipay was founded in Guangzhou in 2025, bringing that trade and logistics experience together in one company. It works with businesses on sourcing and freight, and it continues to develop SHI-X, an app designed to connect the stages of a business trip to China: hotels and flights, mobility and food, sourcing, logistics and exhibitions. Those categories come from the list travellers were already putting together themselves.
Working with Shipay
Shipay applies that experience to corporate sourcing and freight between China and the Middle East, alongside the development of SHI-X. Businesses planning an order, a shipment or a trip to China can contact the company to discuss what it handles now and explore SHI-X for their time in China.