DOHA – Qatar and Saudi Arabia will electronically link their customs departments by the end of this year, setting the timetable for the conclusion of the electronic link between Abu Samra customs in Qatar and Salwa customs in Saudi Arabia, the Director General of Qatar Customs Department said in a statement Thursday after a meeting of officials of the two countries in Qatar capital city. The Saudi delegation discussed the final arrangements for the completion of the automated link with Ahmed bin Ali Al-Mohannadi, the Director General of Qatar Customs Department. The statement said the meeting, attended by technical experts from both sides, discussed a number of topics related to procedures and arrangements of automated interconnection and exchange of customs data. After the meeting, the Saudi delegation visited the customs port of the Abu Samra and Salwa to test them and review the requirements needed for the connecting process and test networking between the two ports using information sharing techniques that have been agreed on. The Saudi customs officers recently held a three-day training at the Customs Training Center in Riyadh in a move to step up the campaign against counterfeit products. “The knowledge gained will be shared with the border police and used to detect whether goods entering the Kingdom are fake or not," one of the lecturers said. If the Saudi Customs Office detects a counterfeit product, it is possible to initiate criminal or civil proceedings to obtain a seizure of the consignment. The lecturer talked on how a counterfeit product from his company could be detected. “This training has been held a number of times before and was attended by representatives of local companies to shed light on how to detect fake products," he said. “Company representatives enlightened the trainees on the exact details of their products, so that they could distinguish which are genuine and which counterfeit," he added. The Ministry of Culture and Information has coordinated with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance to stamp out counterfeiting or piracy. – SG/Agencies
