Dubai Customs takes part in the Dubai Government Achievements Exhibition, where it showcases six projects, developed in-house in order to boost Dubai’s trade competitiveness by reducing the time needed for processing Customs procedures via the appliance of these projects, empowering both traders and investors to increase their commercial transactions returns; thus retaining their uphold towards Dubai as their main chosen destination of trade and investment.
The DGAE, which is held at the DWTC as part of Dubai’s Government Excellence Program during April 8th to 10th. The event is considered as one of Dubai’s spearhead projects directed towards staging and introducing the hallmarks of Dubai’s Departments achievement record; simultaneously serving as a motivational gest towards scoring more successes and to introduce visitors with an insight into the Departments’ relentless endeavours towards facilitating the best services for clients.
H.E Ahmed Mahboob, the Director of Dubai Customs, stated: “The DGAE provides a golden opportunity for us as a platform to project our signature achievements and to further verify our ascending development record with regard to our work mechanisms thriving to elevate Dubai’s Governmental achievements eminence into international levels. We at Dubai Customs have scored a series of achievements granting us a huge leap of development in our custom work, endorsing our capabilities in providing high quality services and facilitations to our clients leveraging their retention of Dubai as the their preferred destination of trade and investment.”
Ahmed Mahboob further noted that “Our development plans are not limited to what we have achieved so far; we eagerly look forward to attain a further level of achievements that goes hand in hand with Dubai’s plans towards transforming into the world’s smartest city, as part of its early preparation to host the worlds’ largest event in the field of exhibitions EXPO 2020. Thus, we at the DC are working on providing the best compatible support to this event while delivering the utmost of customs services’ facilitation allowing the exhibitors to attain exceeding results.”
The exhibited DC accomplishments comprise a number of the fundamental projects that were developed internally and effectively contributed to the development of its Customs work, including the following projects:
Advanced Container Scanning System
The Advanced Container Scanning system is the first innovative and comprehensive solution in the world that combined and integrated multiple disparate components of inspection technologies. It is the latest world-class integrated system for containers and trucks screening. The device can screen the contents of 150 trucks per hour moving at 8 to 15 km/hour, that is one truck per every 24 seconds. The system has been developed in order to effectively protect the borders of Dubai and UAE.
The award-winning Advanced Container Scanning System, which recently claimed DGEP’s Distinguished Technological/Technical Project Award, has made great achievements, namely increasing compliance in Jebel Ali from 42% in 2010 to 91.7% in 2013; the total value of seizures over the last 3 years amounted to AED 774 Million; effectively scanning 100% of suspected containers against radioactive material; reducing the total inspection time from 2 hours to 20 minutes per container; cutting down container inspection cost by 54% after implementation; and finally increasing the number of clients in Jebel Ali by 33% during 2010-2013.
“Al Kashif” Vehicle
Al Kashif is a mini golf cart that is capable of conducting the work equivalent of a whole team armed with hi-tech equipment
The project of Al Kashif vehicle, which won this year’s DGEP Innovative Idea Award, aims to make inspection procedures easier for the good of passengers. Equipped with 16 different detectors, the vehicle smoothly moves between passengers and helps in the detection of 16 prohibited materials in passengers baggage without any fuss.
The world-class invention is furnished to carry out drug analysis in just 7 minutes, compared to 4 days before. Over a short period of service since its deployment in Dubai airports, Al Kashif demonstrated its efficiency and effectiveness in detecting prohibited materials. Around 36 seizures of prohibited materials were unveiled, and 261 types of restricted and prohibited items were intercepted.
Al Kashif also helped in the restructuring of business and inspection processes, allowing significant optimisation of Customs resources. Around AED 6 million was saved in inspection equipment at Dubai airports.
Most importantly, the system achieved 82% passengers satisfaction across Dubai airports thanks to the noticeable easiness and speed of inspection operations.
“Risk Engine” System
Developed in-house by Dubai Customs, the Risk Engine is a smart system that is fed with shipment information from various channels. Dubai Customs’ Intelligence Department collects, links and analyses such information to come out with any risks that should be entered in the system. All risky transactions are turned down by the system.
The Risk Engine has helped increase the volume of seizures for locally and internationally prohibited/restricted cargo. The seizures went up by 355% during a period of three years from 2010-2012.
Consignments cleared in less than 10 minutes have increased by 328%, which represents 82% of total Customs transactions. The deployed system also helped reduce the time required for risk assessment to less than 2 seconds, thereby 97% of unsuspected transactions are cleared in less than 1 minute from the time consignment data is logged. Human intervention with the transactions has been decreased by 13%, thus increasing the volume of transactions completed automatically.
The WCO’s Columbus Diagnostic Mission Report commended Dubai Customs’ Risk Engine as a reference model for other administrations worldwide.
Unmanned Quad-Copter Capturing Inspection Operations
The unmanned quad-copter is designed to assist in Customs inspection of wooden ships at Dubai Creek. The idea is an expression of the vision of our wise government that inspires public sector employees to put forth creative initiatives, such as innovative ideas, development projects and suggestions that would contribute to improving the government institutions and advancing the community at large.
The quad-copter is used in capturing Customs inspection operations on board vessels berthing at Dubai Creek. The imaging is done from different angles to better serve inspectors in their mission.
The experiment will be generalized later on to include other operations at Customs centers.
Mirsal 2
Mirsal 2 is an integrated electronic system launched by Dubai Customs in March 2010. It was developed internally over a period of two years, aimed at boosting economy and facilitating a streamlined trade movement, while taking into account national security interests.
Developed as per the standards and requirements of the WCO, and in accordance with global Customs best practices, the system has made a quantum leap in the history of customs operations, in view of the gigantic potentials and state-of-the-art technologies it has in a way that has covered the entire spectrum of customs operations. The time needed to complete customs transactions was reduced by 75% through Mirsal 2.
The system provides an array of customs services, namely registration, clearance, licensing and e-pay procedures, all through a paperless environment.