Ahmed Mahboob Musabih: We developed 237 new customs innovations in 2020 based on young employees’ innovative ideas

Saeed Mohammed Al Nathari: Turning dialogue into a daily practice is a priority, and we organized 3,000 discussion panels that targeted 3,000 young people   

Dubai – 28 January 2021: Dubai Customs organized a youth’s panel discussion as part of its activities in the 4th UAE Customs Week in conjunction with the World Customs Day on 26 January. The panel discussion was organized in cooperation with the Federal Youth Authority to discuss the youth’s role in the future customs, in the presence of HE Ahmed Mahboob Musabih, Director General of Dubai Customs and HE Saeed Mohammed Al Nathari, Director General of the Federal Youth Authority. 

Mr Musabih and Mr Al Nathari talked about the important role the youth can play in tomorrow’s customs. A number of customs directors in Dubai Customs and tens of young people who work in the customs field attended the discussion panel. The main topic of the discussion panel was the youth’s share and role in developing the UAE towards the next 50 years and the fulfilment of the UAE Centennial 2071 plan.  

More than 95 young people participated in the online discussion through which many rich ideas and suggestions were put on the table. These included establishing a youth council at Dubai Customs and developing academic curricula to include customs studies in cooperation with the universities.  
Commenting on the discussion panel HE Ahmed Mahboob Musabih said: “Customs field is going through major transformation due to the advanced technologies applied in the field. That was sped up by the spread of the pandemic, which necessitated more application and use of technology.”

Musabih stated that the youth have contributed to the development and building of modern UAE in the last 50 years. There were major achievements including the launch of the HOPE probe to Mars, and is now on a 500-million-km journey to study the planet's weather and climate.

The UAE Government dedicated Dhs9.6 billion for education which is a reflection of the wise vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai of making human potential the main resource of development and advancement. 

The UAE topped the Arab World on the global innovation index in 2020 for the fifth consecutive years and moved up two ranks to occupy the 34th position worldwide. 

E-commerce receives big attention in this regard with expectations that this trade will make Dhs5.8tr by 2024. For this, Dubai Customs launched its blockchain based Smart Cross Border e-Commerce Platform which aims to increase the emirate’s local and regional distribution share to Dhs24b by 2022 as it will decrease e-commerce cost by 20%. 

Dubai Customs completed 16 million transactions in 2020 (compared to 13m transactions in 2019) out of which 99.3% were completed through smart and electronic channels. 

Dubai Customs developed 237 unique innovations in 2020 winning 17 global accolades. One of these was the unprecedented Innovative Organization title from the Global Innovation Institute GInI. 

In the same vein, Saeed Mohammed Al Nathari said:
“We work to develop conversation among young people, and towards this end we organized 3,000 discussion panels in which 100, 000 young people participated following the wise vision of our leadership of making dialogue and positive interaction a daily practice to reach out for the best and most innovative solutions.

Mohammed Al Ghaffari, Executive Director, Human Resources, Finance and Administration Division at Dubai Customs said: “We made a series of detailed studies about the future of customs careers, and we placed the human skills and potential to be the basis of all our future careers to cope with the technological advancements that we see today.”

In his turn, Ahmed Abdul Salam Kazim, Director of Strategy and Corporate Excellence Department at Dubai Customs said: 
“We keep developing our potential and evolving to keep abreast with the technological advancements and maintaining our leading position worldwide. A total of 10 innovations have been adopted and we look forward to achieving more developments towards a brighter future for the customs field.”