Dubai – Saturday 26 October 2019:  Dubai Customs won the innovation platinum award, with a 6-star rating from EFQM Global Excellence Award scoring 700 points, the highest among all participating organizations. With this exceptional achievement Dubai Customs has become the first organization in the world to win this reputable global award based on the new rating system in 2019. 

Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Director General of Dubai Customs received the award in the ceremony held for this occasion in Finland. 

“Winning the EFQM award is an international recognition of our leading achievements and the advanced level we reached in customs innovation” Musabih commented. 

The objective of the EFQM Excellence Award Program is to recognize Role Model organizations worldwide, whether private, public or non-for-profit. The EFQM Excellence Award Program is supported by one of the most challenging assessment processes. 

To assess organizations and identify role model practices, an international team of 5 to 7 experienced, specifically trained managers spend one week on site and an average of 500 hours in total per applicant. They review the management system and interview individuals as well as groups to analyze how effective the organization is against the EFQM Excellence Model. The feedback report prepared by the assessors provide a wealth of value adding input to help the organization improve at a strategic level. The reports are then presented to an independent jury that decides the level of recognition for each Nominee.

Musabih said: 
“As a role model organization, we invested in innovation in order to develop and upgrade customs procedures in order to introduce the best services and trade facilities. This comes in fulfilment of the wise directives and vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai.

“We have developed and upgraded a number of systems and applications including Mirsal 2, which the WCO considers the best integrated customs system in the world. We have also gone far with our Authorized Economic Operator and in 2018, 34% of our customs declarations were done through this system compared to 23% in 2017. This percentage is expected to rise to 50% by 2020, and more mutual recognition agreements are expected to be signed following hard on the heels of the agreements with South Korea, KSA and China.”

There is a long list of innovative systems and projects developed by Dubai Customs including the Virtual Corridor initiative, which helped streamline movement of goods between ports and entry points of Dubai. This resulted in a reduced cost and more streamlined customs procedures. In 2018, 324,435 customs transactions were done through the Virtual Corridor. Another project developed by Dubai Customs is the Creek Vessel Berth Management system that manages the operations and movement of vessels that go to 50 ports in 9 partner countries. 

Director of Dubai Customs thanked the work team for their noticeable efforts in turning strategy into action and continuously improving their performance, and he thanked all the employees for complying to and applying the international standards in their work.