Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information
In the Islamic Countries
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Table 4, which contains detailed data from the TFIs, confirms this impression. The UAE has
either partially or fully implemented most aspects of the four pillars examined in this report. On
advance rulings the major area of weak performance appears to be the absence of effective time
limits. Nonetheless, the overall impression that emerges is one of strong and consistent
performance.
The UAE ratified the TFA on April 18th, 2016. It has designated all of the first four articles under
Category A—since it has developing country status at the WTO—with the exception of Article
3.1 on advance rulings. It does not currently have any provisions notified under Category C, so
there is no evidence of a requirement for further technical assistance. Indeed, as already
indicated, the area of advance rulings is the subject of ongoing work within the Customs
administration, but there is no evidence that the performance gap relative to global best practice
is related to a need for technical assistance. This pattern of notifications reinforces the
impression noted above that advance rulings is an area where performance could improve to
take the country closer to the global best practice frontier.
Administrative and Consultative Processes to Support Information Availability
The UAE Customs website, has a link to the unified tariff schedule for GCC
countries. Single Window services are provided by Dubai Trade a service
that brings together the various processes and procedures related to trade transactions, and
houses them together. Companies can subscribe to Dubai Trade to have access to its full
functionalities. In addition, a large number of user guides and information sheets relating to
different aspects of the trading environment are available free of charge. In any event,
has comprehensive access to customs and trade procedures. The
website provides details of customs procedures, and offers businesses gateways that can be
used for electronic declarations. There are is also easy access to enquiry points. Websites are
available in Arabic and English. However, the provision of information on duties and charges is
not comprehensive. Similarly, the website does not have fully worked examples of classification,
valuation, and determination of origin, as was seen in the case of Singapore. However, the UAE
has established enquiry points for trade facilitation purposes.
The UAE has procedures for advanced rulings, which can be requested online. However, as the
OECD data suggest, full details on the rules surrounding them are difficult to identify, which
introduces some uncertainty into the process. Although a large amount of information is
available online for the UAE, it is not centralized in the same way as in Singapore, for example,
and in cases like advance rulings, does not reach the same level of precision and clarity for
operators. As a result, no information is publicly available on the duration of advance rulings,
the charges associated with them, or the circumstances under which they can be modified or
revoked, as well as publication requirements and the treatment of confidential information.
Such information is likely available and well understood within the trade community, but the
lack of a single publicly available, non-technical source would be an obstacle for small or
intermittent traders. The issue of advance rulings is the subject of an ongoing initiative within
Dubai Customs, as at December 2018.19
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