Enhancing Public Availability of Customs Information
In the Islamic Countries
58
The UNGS, by contrast, suggests that the UAE’s performance is generally closer to the best
practice frontier (Figure 31). However, the area of advance rulings again stands out as one
where performance is significantly behind best practice.
Figure 31: UAE performance on the UNGS data compared with Singapore, 2017.
Source: UNGS.
The Dubai Trade online platform, which is a private entity bringing together all major
stakeholders, integrates services from a range of public and private entities, including Customs,
to provide a comprehensive trade facilitation resource. The website is available in Arabic and
English. It operates as a virtual Single Window system. In addition, the website provides online
access to all relevant laws and regulations, as well as procedures and documents. Like the other
high performance countries examined in these case studies, the UAE has developed a
comprehensive online solution designed to reduce the informational costs associated with
international trade transactions.
Benefits, Challenges, and Lessons Learned
As in the other countries reviewed, there is no systematic quantitative evidence, in a causal
sense, of the benefits of public availability of trade-related information. But the UAE has been
successful in becoming more integrated over time in the world economy, and is a regional, and
in some sectors global, hub for commerce. This development would not have been possible in a
challenging trade facilitation environment, or one way information was difficult and costly to
obtain.
The scope of public information dissemination is not as complete in the UAE as in Singapore, but
the country makes effective use of ICTs through the use of websites and online resources to
publish trade-related information. While there is a performance gap in some areas relative to
global best practice, the available evidence suggests that the UAE is working towards closing
that gap. It is already compliant with the bulk of the TFA’s provisions within its first four articles,
with the notable exception of advance rulings.
0
0,5
1
1,5
2
2,5
3
National Trade
Facilitation
Committee
Publication of
Regulations
Stakeholder
Consultations
Advance
Publication
Advance Ruling UAE
Singapore