New initiatives have been announced by Dubai Trade, a premier trade facilitation entity that offers integrated electronic services from various trade and logistics service providers in Dubai under a single window.

One of the moves announced by the organisation’s chief executive officer Mahmood Al Bastaki is "Rosoom Wallet" or e-wallet. Al Bastaki said this upcoming initiative has been created to facilitate real time management of money within a safe and secure environment. Rosoom Wallet allows the user to pay online for a list of e-Services, provided by a number of partners. Users can top-up their accounts from major banks and have complete control and visibility on all payments done by their company, he explained.

Other moves to be introduced shortly include the TradeShield for online cargo insurance. The service enables customers to apply and obtain standard cargo insurance policies online. "It has been created to further streamline trade processes, converting manual procedures to faster more convenient electronic transactions, thus, creating a true one-stop-shop for all shipping related services," said Al Bastaki.

"Our technology team is also working on our corporate mobile strategy to put in place usability standards aimed at creating an intuitive easy-to-use interface and a seamless user experience through a wide variety of mobile devices. The initiative is in line with the announcement made in May 2013 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to move the government services towards ‘’Smart Government.’ Customers will enjoy a better user experience and a more interactive way to engage and transact with Dubai Trade. The strategy and framework is jointly developed by Dubai Trade, Dubai Customs, DP World and Jafza.

"Another area of growth we will be exploring will be of trade finance, bank payments and settlements; we are currently working on identifying gaps and solutions in that front. In parallel, we will continue to bring under the single window more eservices from both government and non-government departments."

One of the services Dubai Trade offers relates to the Vessel Sailing Schedule online search service that chronicles and monitors the movements of commercial vessels from Jebel Ali port in Dubai to more than 700 seaports worldwide. Here, users get information on vessel updates and sailing schedules of multiple shipping lines. Searches can also be filtered based on dates, transit times, ports and preferred shipping lines.

Dubai Trade is a subsidiary of Dubai World through the intermediary company, Port & Free Zone World FZE and is incorporated under the laws of the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority in Dubai.

Impressive progress

A training session organised by Dubai Trade

Over the years Dubai Trade’s growth came primarily from automation of existing counter-based services of the business units and other related group companies. However, since 2012 it has become an independent entity and its focus is more towards launching value added services for its downstream customers like traders, shipping lines and logistics service providers.

Al Bastaki said 2013 has been a great year for Dubai Trade both in terms of transactions on its single window portal and its new customer registrations. The past eight months have seen a surge in the demand for the electronic services offered by Dubai Trade, the leading facilitator for cross border trade. More than 12,500 new trade and logistics companies have registered so far this year taking the total number of companies registered to more than 81,900. This constitutes an increase of almost 18 per cent, one of the highest year-on-year growth witnessed since Dubai Trade’s establishment.

Impressive growth in the number of registered users also affected the number of transactions carried out over the Dubai Trade Portal. Transactions grew by 11 per cent during the past eight months of 2013 when compared with the same period of last year and the total number of e-transactions this year has already crossed more than 11 million (January-August 2013).

The portal services are on a continuing growth curve. The Dubai Trade Client Relations team conducts visits to clients regularly aimed at enhancing and improving the available e-services as well as to obtain feedback and suggestions to develop new interactive online services.

Graduates of a Dubai Trade training programme at their convocation

"Our valued customers are involved in the whole service design lifecycle from requirements gathering and creation to the testing and launching phases. Even after having the e-service launched we are running surveys to evaluate the quality of the e-services offered on our portal and to gather our customer feedback," said Al Bastaki.

Dubai Trade provides training to customers who plan to utilise its e-services to ensure that the transition from traditional manual methods to an online system progresses as efficiently as possible. Any service at Dubai Trade is supported throughout its lifetime with Dubai Trade’s professional support team which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through a state-of-the art Contact Centre which operates in multiple languages.

"Dubai stands at the crossroads of the trade routes bridging East and West and is a major trading hub. To continue facilitations of trade in an easy, efficient, highly streamlined and business-savvy manner is the goal of Dubai Trade," commented Al Bastaki.

"Dubai has excellent infrastructure, wise and pro-business oriented policies, a can-do attitude and overall business conditions conducive to conducting and setting up new businesses. Dubai Trade is and will certainly be instrumental in ensuring that systems and processes are set in place without a hitch thereby facilitating trade and commerce in a competent and proficient manner.

"Trade is what defines and moves Dubai and we are here to ensure its smooth facilitation."