The duty exemption online service, Dutex, is free of charge and was developed in-house by UAE nationals in five months, said Saeed Abdullah Mohammed Al Rokn, assistant manager, UAE e-Government, Ministry of Finance and Industry.
"The seven local customs authorities have welcomed the implementation of the system, which will be useful for around 3,000 industrial establishments registered with the ministry. A training course is also planned for customers in the near future," he added.
"Once applications are approved, customers are automatically notified and given serial numbers to be forwarded to designated customs departments," explained Ruqeya Al Mehairi, software engineer, UAE e-Government.
"Regular authentication fees are paid at regular channels - ministry's bank accounts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or representative, or through e-dirham," noted Al Rokn.
Alya Al Obaidly, software engineer, UAE e-Government, said Dutex includes three web pages - the customer's web page, the customs employees' web page and the web page for the employees of the UAE Ministry of Finance and Industry's exemption division.
On their web page, customers can apply for duty exemption, make changes in the factory's raw materials list and display a raw material list.
The web page for customs' employees includes the list of duty exemption requests, while that for the ministry's employees includes customers' requests, list of factories' raw materials, and reports.
Rukeya explained that the Add Request/Increase Request categories on customer's web page enable factories with new production lines to add new materials that were not specified when the industrial licence was obtained, or increase the quantity of one or more of their raw materials.
For temporary increases in one or more raw materials, factories can use the Exception Request facility and get their approvals through e-mail.
Shabib Ahmed bin Rashid bin Shabib, director of the ministry's industrial development department, said Dutex was necessary to match the facilitated procedures for issue of industrial licences, plans for the UAE e-Government, the experimental implementation of Gatt on January 1, 2003, and the GCC customs union.
Mohammed Qambar, IT Department director, said the ministry has developed the registration systems of factories, importers and contractors.
Work on the federal purchasing system began in November, and the UAE e-Government project is also on the way.
Autor: Rasha Owais
Quelle: Gulf News, 16.12.2002
