HIBAPRESS – MAP
The Secretary of State in charge of Foreign Trade, Omar Hajira, affirmed on Tuesday in the Council of Advisors that digitalization has significantly contributed to reducing the timeframes for foreign trade transactions.
Hajira explained, in response to oral questions within the framework of a unified topic on "The Importance of Digitalization in Enhancing the Kingdom's Trade Exchanges," that the "PortNet" platform (the single national window for foreign trade procedures) enabled the conversion of 120 services into digital services, the connection of 50 institutions and administrations, and the coverage of various ports and airports in the Kingdom, which led to the digitalization of 96 percent of foreign trade procedures. He added that this dynamism included, in particular, the digitalization of licenses and documents related to import operations, the inspection of industrial and food products, and the linking of procedures with bodies such as customs and the National Office of Food Safety of Food Products, the adoption of electronic payment, and the prior declaration of goods, in addition to improving digital coordination between various control devices. The government official stated that these measures contributed to achieving tangible results, including reducing the duration of import commitment localization from one week to three hours, reducing the duration of goods stay from 13 days to 8 days, and reducing the duration of stay in border crossings by 43 percent. Regarding the simplification of procedures, Hajira announced that the unified export portal, which has been worked on for a year and a half and has held about 60 meetings, will be launched next month, clarifying that it will constitute a digital platform in the form of a unified window for foreign trade procedures, with the aim of developing it to become a single window in the future.
