The Saudi General Customs Authority has announced plans to bolster its future strategy to stimulate the national economy.
It also revealed its contribution to enabling the Kingdom to transform into a global logistics hub by facilitating cross-border trade and generating revenues, after making great achievements in 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic.
“Expanding the scope of the customs center, by launching the second phase of the e-system to integrate and link it with the country’s commercial, industrial and security system, has contributed in 2020 to reducing the rate of manual inspection by 10 percent so far, with an additional reduction expected by the end of the year.”
According to the authority, this contributes to facilitating trade, accelerating the movement of goods along with protecting society and the economy.
It further revealed that it is currently implementing the new operating model, saying it has destroyed more than two million counterfeit goods that were seized through all land, sea and air ports.
At a forum held in Riyadh on Wednesday, the Customs briefed journalists about its achievements in 2020, including the implementation of the new Arar border crossing project to bolster Saudi-Iraqi economic relations.
The authority has also completed the customs operations center in early 2020 to complement its initiatives in engineering import and export procedures.
The center has become responsible for documenting and electronically handling tasks.
The authority further launched the customs cases system, which is an e-system project that automates customs work and integrates concerned departments and relevant government agencies to provide automated e-services that include its legal department’s work procedures.
In terms of facing the pandemic, the authority applied strict internal and external precautionary measures and reduced the number of employees at crossings while expanding their shifts to ensure that services are provided throughout the day.
