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Foreign Trade Ministry Provides 2009 Commercial Data On Its Website |
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The Ministry of Foreign Trade has completed uploading the UAE’s 2009 foreign trade data on its Foreign Trade Information Service Provider, available on the Ministry’s web site. With the new service, users may now obtain information about the UAE’s foreign trade statistics and data from 1998 up until last year. The free service offers users the opportunity to get complete information about the flow of commodities in export and re-export activities and imports for the year 2009 and the past ten years between the United Arab Emirates and approximately 202 countries and economic entities. The information provided, which is categorized in a unified and simple format, includes the names of traded commodities and their values. This unique upgrade comes within the Ministry of Foreign Trade’s strategy of increasing commercial awareness and providing accurate and up-to-date information to investors, businessmen, researchers and others regarding foreign trade issues, and as part of its efforts to improve its interaction and communication with all national and international private sector companies and investors. Abdullah Ahmed Al Saleh, Director General, Ministry of Foreign Trade, said that due to the important role played by foreign trade in the national economy, and high level of commercial openness adopted by UAE, which constituted 173% of the GDP, the ministry has developed the mechanisms of dealing with foreign trade through applying a second dimension to data presentation through introducing the UAE’s "Foreign Trade Information Service Provider" which transfers content from the data level to the information level using the latest international technical and data efficiency standards. He added that the UAE’s FTISP has been developed by an internal work group formed by the Ministry last year that included economic and technical specialists who worked throughout the past months on developing it so that it may act as a dynamic trade data exchange platform that can improve decision making in foreign trade through using modern information tools that are easy to use for both specialists and non specialists alike. He pointed out that this will assist in achieving the highest levels of competitiveness aspired by the Ministry and will introduce new users such as universities, the media, marketing and investment companies and others and will not confine information acquisition to a certain time, but would rather make it available 24/7. It will also promote informative integration with federal and international entities, and will decrease the percentage of error as a result of the reliance on a system instead of on an individual. He also said that it will also expand what is being made available to researchers because they will now be able to obtain an unrestrained number of data reports. For his part, Feras Darweesh, an Information Systems Expert at the Ministry, affirmed that classifying the commercial information in a unified and easy to access form has led to the establishment of a unified language that can make possible the monitoring of commodity flows and breaking them down in accordance with a "Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System" through dividing data into organized sections, chapters, and commodities that can be easily viewed, accessed, stored, and compared with other data. Darweesh added that the main challenge that faced the workgroup was moving the query algorithm to the user interface so as to enable users to create a complex and elaborate query system that can satisfy all their requests. This business need has led to the use of certain advanced capabilities that are possible through the deployment of such techniques as Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and a dynamic reports issuing system which is being used for the first time in the entire region. The Ministry of Foreign Trade’s web site reflects the crucial role played by the Ministry with its vision of strengthening the UAE’s commercial standing both regionally and internationally through boosting the country’s foreign relations and interests and putting in place a commercial policy that is at pace with global commercial developments and that serves the country’s economic interests. It also reflects the Ministry’s strategy of protecting the UAE’s commercial interests abroad, increasing commercial competitiveness both regionally and internationally, increasing awareness about the commercial legislative climates that are the most compatible with international best practices, and achieving institutional superiority through competence and effectiveness. The web site, which is available in both Arabic and English, offers detailed data about commercial exchange between the UAE and all world countries during the past ten years (1999-2009) in terms of values, commodity types, exports, re-exports and imports, thus constituting a unique tool that can be utilized by investors and commercial traders to obtain useful information that will assist them in their entry into global markets and in setting up essential partnerships that can boost the UAE’s foreign trade and domestic investments. |
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