DEMAND for electronic services offered by Dubai Trade, the leading facilitator of trade across borders under Dubai World, has considerably surged in the past 12 months, figures reveal.

More than 10,500 new trading and logistics companies joined the Dubai Trade Portal since the end of Q1, 2012, raising the total number of companies registered for e-services to around 74,300 by the end of Q1/2013. This constitutes an increase of almost 17 per cent – one of the highest year-on-year growth rates Dubai Trade witnessed since it was established to serve the future needs of the supply-chain community and spearhead the next generation of e-services that have contributed to making the UAE a strategic hub for global shipping traffic.

Commenting on the annual and quarterly results, engineer Mahmood Al Bastaki, CEO of Dubai Trade, said:

“Performance figures have almost exceeded our expectations. Thanks to strategic growth planning, implementation of best practices and continuous upgrade of customer-focused solutions, we succeeded in winning customers’ confidence and building an excellent reputation, which is creating a ripple effect in bringing on-board bigger numbers of companies.

Al Bastaki noted that the high demand for Dubai Trade services also supports the view that Dubai and the UAE in general are already way ahead in recovering from the pitfalls of the global financial crisis and economic downturn that still grip some of the most developed economies in the world.

“This buoyant businesses environment, along with enhanced solutions from Dubai Trade, has started to attract bigger numbers of companies of all sizes to our portal, not only big players,” he added.

Impressive growth in the number of registered users also affected the number of transactions carried out over the Dubai Trade Portal. Transactions grew by 10 per cent during only the first quarter of 2013 when compared with the same period of last year. The total number of e-transactions increased from 3.51 million in Q1, 2012 to 3.86 million in Q1, 2013. Total transactions completed throughout 2012 approached 15 million – more than doubling over a three-year period, when they counted 7.3 million in 2009.

Al Bastaki gave much credit to his team for the role it played in various projects undertaken by Dubai Trade in the past 12 months, especially in putting together innovative, user-friendly and scalable solutions in place, which contributed significantly to overall growth.

Al Bastaki: masterminding growth

The team, along with strategic partners, was honoured recently for successfully completing 10 key projects in 2012, during the annual Employee Appreciation Ceremony 2013, which was attended by senior executives from DP World, Dubai Customs, Jafza, ITC, Dubai World and Dubai Trade, including Jamal Majid Bin Thaniah, chairman, Dubai Trade, who gave the opening speech and awarded high achievers.

Al Bastaki’s team included Fayez Maarrawi, senior manager, operation; Ravi Kumar, senior manager, projects and business innovation, and Shahab Al Jassmi, senior manager, commercial. Mahmood Amin, CEO, World Security, was present.

In his speech, Al Thaniah, said: “Dedication, resourcefulness, team spirit and taking the initiative are important characteristics we value in our employees. It is their hard work that is behind Dubai Trade’s success, completing its projects, ensuring customer satisfaction and meeting the overall goal of keeping the competitiveness of the UAE as a global trade hub and the region’s leading business centre.”

The completed projects covered several areas. Dubai Trade’s IT infrastructure has been entirely revamped and rebuilt from ground up to sustain the overwhelming growth in business and replace the existing platform with cutting-edge, reliable, and most scalable technologies.

 Enhancement of existing services and the introduction of new ones continued to fuel growth in Dubai Trade. These included the 800-Jafza hotline project, which migrated and integrated two call centres to provide a single, more efficient, end-to-end contact service.

RECOGNITION
The facilitation of trade across borders over the past 12 months through these services and many others, such as the real-time online vessel schedule, brought Dubai Trade international recognition from the World Bank and World Economic Forum for contributing to the UAE’s global rankings in the Doing Business Report 2013 and the Global Competitiveness Survey, which placed the UAE fifth worldwide in the “trading across borders” category.

Dubai Trade received several other accolades for its achievements in the past 12 months including the “Editor’s Choice Award” at the Trade and Export Excellence Award ceremony, and the selection of Dubai Trade CEO Al Bastaki as winner in the “Accomplished Leaders” category of the Feigenbaum Leadership Excellence Award 2013. Al Bastaki was also selected to the high-profile judging panel of the Dubai regional final of the fourth Annual Hult Prize held earlier this year.

In turn, Dubai Trade recognised top performers among its clients for their support to it in the 5th E-Services Excellence Award held in January.