RIYADH — Minister of Commerce Dr. Majed Al-Qasabi said that the Ministry of Commerce's winning of the Arab Government Excellence Award is one of the fruits of the Kingdom's Vision 2030. "The Commerce Ministry's naming as the best Arab Ministry is a new achievement for our dear country," he said while lauding the creative efforts and hard work of the trade team that enabled the ministry to win this prestigious honor. Saudi Arabia has bagged six awards in the field of Arab government excellence in the competition organized by the Arab Organization for Administrative Development, an affiliate of the Cairo-based Arab League, in cooperation with the government of the United Arab Emirates. Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the winners of the Arab Government Excellence Award in a virtual ceremony held in Dubai on Wednesday. The award was launched last year to recognize leading Arab ministers and ministries for their outstanding work in advancing governance and administrative practice in the region. "I congratulate King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman for the Saudi Ministry of Commerce being chosen as the best ministry in the Arab world," Sheikh Mohammed said. "The Saudi Ministry of Commerce was selected as the best ministry from among more than 5,000 Arab government entities that participated in the award," Sheikh Mohammed said. The Ministry of Commerce bagged the top honor thanks to its institutional excellence in accordance with the best international standards, as well as the adoption of concepts of innovation and development, and the dedication to achieve goals and strategies related to the Vision. The ministry's application "Start up Your Company" was chosen among the Best Arab Government Applications along with Sakani, the Ministry of Housing's application to facilitate real estate finance. The ministry's "Start up Your Company" enables the electronic establishment of companies within 30 minutes after automating all procedures. The Ministry of Commerce has been chosen for the Best Arab Ministry award in recognition of its outstanding achievements due to consistent and strenuous efforts to scale ladders of excellence. Over the past years, the ministry has worked on restructuring and adopting a new organizational structure in line with Vision 2030 to include a special agency for customer service, a general department for business governance, and a transformed management office. The ministry has updated its strategy for work to improve the commercial environment and align it with the goals of the Vision, and to be a model for institutional excellence at the regional level. The ministry also attracted qualified and competent hands in various fields and worked to strengthen the job link as it reached 80 percent in 2019 and is higher than the global average and the highest among government agencies during three consecutive years, and the percentage of employees who were trained shot up to more than 90 percent as well. The ministry promoted the social participation of employees and expanded the training and qualification of youth and students and the application of all provisions of the ISO2600 specification. It was also keen in its work to facilitate the start and practice of commercial activity, as five procedures were clubbed in one step to start a business electronically, and the period for establishing companies was reduced from 15 days to 30 minutes, and services was automated so that the percentage of customers who are served electronically increased to 97 percent in addition to expanding customer centers with a comprehensive employee concept. The system of legislation has also been strengthened by preparing and developing nearly 60 legislations, including rules and regulations, most notably the E-Commerce Law, the Commercial Franchise Law, Professional Companies Law, Commercial Mortgage Law, and Anti-Cover up Law. The reforms and improvements implemented by the ministry have contributed to the Kingdom's qualitative leap by 103 ranks in the index of starting commercial activity — which is supervised by the ministry — to reach the 38th rank globally, and the third globally in the protection index for the minority of investors according to the Doing Business 2020, a flagship publication of the World Bank. The Kingdom is among the top 10 developing countries in e-commerce and the efforts of digital transformation have contributed to the classification of the ministry's transactions within the Platinum category in the maturity of electronic services according to the government's Yesser program for electronic transactions. The Arab Government Excellence Award is considered the first award of its kind in the Arab world, and the largest in the field of development, improvement, and administrative excellence. It was launched by the UAE government in cooperation with the Arab League to contribute to administrative development and government institutional excellence, stimulate leadership thought, and celebrate successful administrative and governmental experiments in the Arab world. The Saudi Food and Drug Authority has won the Best Arab Government Entity award while the Furijat initiative was chosen the Best Arab Government Initiative. Eng. Mohammed Al-Mowkley, CEO of the National Water Company, has bagged the Best General Manager of an Arab entity Award.
