Following Dubai Customs strategic plan in 2021, which aims to build competencies and enhance the skills and experience of its human resources, the Customs Training centre at Dubai Customs organised 160 training workshops in Q1, 2021. The training workshops included 139 customs specialized workshops, 19 on administrative skills and two awareness workshops, with a total of 4,000 training hours that targeted 1,079 employees.

The training plan for this year was based on a number of criteria to cover the matrix of technical and behavioral competencies and to cope up with the government’s current and future trends, and the variables in the work environment.

The training courses were diverse and included topics such as the customs risk evaluation, shipment risk indicators, risk indicators at the airports, sea shipment risk indicators, drug smuggling methods, security sense, body language, behavioral indicators, Coordinated Border Management (CBM), cyber security, among others.

“This year’s training plan focuses on developing knowledge and practical competencies for employees of all categories and specialties, with special focus on developing managers for future leadership rules to keep up with the international shifting trends,” said Mohammed Al Ghaffari, Acting Executive Director, Human Resources, Finance and Administration Division. “Our aim is to reach for a more efficient legitimate trade and more secure future within our vision of becoming the leading customs administration in the world supporting legitimate trade.” Al Ghaffari went on to add; “Dubai Customs is committed to its annual training programme, and will keep adding new courses each year to cope up with the government’s future trends.” Along the same line, Asma Ahmed, Senior Manager, Training programme Management said the training centre focused, in the training plan, on diversity of topics to cover different self-development and administrative sides.

Dubai Customs’ intellectual property rights (IPR) Department organised a virtual meeting recently with the trademark owners to discuss ways to boost cooperation between the two sides, and any future shared projects and initiatives.

From Dubai Customs, Yousef Ozair Mubarak, Director of IPR Department, Noura Ahmed, Manager of IP Recording Section, Mohammed Bin Nasir, Manager of IP Dispute Section, Eng. Saeed Bin Faris, Team Leader, and Samiha Hasan Albloushi, IP Officer attended the meeting.

Malik Hanouf, CEO of Brand Owners’ Protection Group and representatives of 29 legal services and law offices represented the other side.

Ozair reaffirmed the importance of effective communication between the Government and private sector to exchange knowledge and expertise in how best to protect the rights of brand owners.  “The UAE has achieved a lot of success in all walks of life in the last 50 years following the leadership’s wise vision which calls for encouraging creativity, protecting intellectual rights and supporting trade and investments,” said Ozair.

The two sides discussed best methods to tackle all difficulties and challenges to protect the intellectual property rights and learn from the lessons of covid-19 in setting plans for the post covid-19 era. Malik Hanouf thanked Dubai Customs for their outstanding efforts in protecting the rights of trademark owners and fighting counterfeit goods, and for their effective cooperation and communication with the private sector.

In 2020, Dubai external trade made Dhs1.182 trillion, and the weight touched 100 million tonnes. Last year, exports grew 8 per cent to Dhs167 billion despite the hard challenges posed by the spread of COVID-19. Imports reached Dhs686 billion and re-exports totaled Dhs329 billion.  Dr. Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade visited Dubai Customs to learn more about their latest projects and initiatives in facilitating foreign trade.

Sultan bin Sulayem, DP World Group Chairman & CEO and Chairman of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, confirmed that COVID-19 as a pandemic is now behind us and that the indicators of the local market in different sectors in Q1 are positive, and trade figures are higher than those of the pre-pandemic Q1, 2019.

At Dubai Customs’ 1st Consultative Council Meeting (DCCC) for 2021, Bin Sulayem said, “The directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to extend freezing on Dubai government fees until early 2023 is a great support for businesses to help them maximise their revenues and attract more foreign investments to the country.”