The Ministry of Commerce has been awarded the Arab Government Excellence Award, as the best Arab Ministry among more than 5,000 Arab Government Candidates. This achievement comes as a result of the institutional excellence based on the best international standards, and based as well on the adoption of innovation and development concepts, as well as for adopting the governance of performance to achieve the goals and strategies related to the Kingdom's Vision 2030. The Ministry of Commerce has been granted as well the award for the best government service in the Arab world, which is "Set-up Your Company" service, which enables the customer to set-up his company within 30 minutes. This is after automating all procedures. The ceremony for honoring the winners of the first round of the award was held "virtually" today at the Emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and with the participation of high-level of Arabs. The Minister of Commerce, Dr. Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi, affirmed that granting the Ministry of Commerce the Arab Government Excellence Award, which is sponsored by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, as the best Arab Ministry, is a new achievement for our dear country, and it is one of the fruits of the Kingdom's Vision 2030, praising the creative efforts and hard work of the Ministry of Commerce team. Over the past years, the Ministry of Commerce has worked on restructuring and adopting a new organization chart to go in line with the Kingdom's Vision 2030, including: A special Deputy Ministry for Customer Services, a General Administration for Work Governance and a Transformation Management Office in the Ministry, also the Ministry's work strategy has been updated to improve and promote the commercial environment and to go in line with the objectives of the Kingdom's Vision, so that to be a model of Regional Institutional Excellence. The Ministry of Commerce also attracted qualified competencies in various fields, and worked to strengthen the job link, as it reached (80%) in 2019 AD, as it is higher than the global average, and the highest among government agencies during 3 consecutive years, also the percentage of employees who were trained increased to more than 90%, as well as the Ministry promoted the community participation of employees and expanded the training and qualification of youth and students, more over the Ministry implemented all the terms and specifications relevant to ISO2600 Social Responsibility. The Ministry was keen in its work to facilitate the start-up and practicing a commercial activity, as 5 procedures were shortened in one step to start-up a business electronically, also the period for setting-up a company was reduced as well from 15 days to 30 minutes, besides service automation, thus the percentage of customers who are served online increased by 97%, in addition to creating Customer Service Centers with a comprehensive employee concept. The legislation system has also been enhanced and strengthened by preparing and developing nearly 60 legislations, rules and regulations including: E-Commerce System, the Commercial Franchise System, the Professional Companies System, the Commercial Mortgage System, the Anti-Commercial Concealment System and others. The reforms and improvements implemented by the Ministry of Commerce contributed to the Kingdom's achievement of a qualitative leap by 103 ranks in the index of starting up a commercial activity - which is supervised by the Ministry - to reach the 38th rank globally, also the 3rd rank globally in the Index of Protecting the Investors' Minority according to the Ease of Business Report 2020, issued by the World Bank. Notably, the Kingdom is among the top 10 developing countries in e-commerce, and the efforts rendered for the digital transformation have contributed to the classification of the Ministry's transactions within the Platinum category in the maturity of electronic services according to (Yasser) program for e-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 Arab States League to contribute to administrative development, government institutional excellence, stimulate leadership thought, and for honoring the best successful administrative and governmental experiences in the Arab world. The award honors the pioneering Arab models in 15 categories distributed into two main categories: institutions and individuals, as the institutional awards include: the best Arab Ministry, the best Arab governmental body or institution, the best Arab government developing initiative or experience, the best Arab government project to empower youth, the best Arab government project for the development of education, the best Arab government project to develop the health sector, the best Arab government project to develop the infrastructure, the best Arab government project for community development, and the best Arab government smart application. The individual awards include: The best Arab Minister, the best Arab governor, the best general manager of a governmental body or institution, the best municipality manager in the Arab cities, the best Arab government employee, and the best Arab female government employee. Notably, the Ministry of Commerce had been granted two weeks ago a certificate of recognition of institutional excellence with a rating of (4 stars) from the European Organization for Quality Management, as the first government agency granted such award in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, thus the Ministry of Commerce is among the only 4 government agencies awarded this certificate around the world.
