The Vision 2030 is Saudi Arabia’s step towards steering the economy towards the post-oil era and the introduction of energy efficient producing technologies. The Vision’s purpose is to introduce innovative technologies and avant-gardism in all aspects of the life of the 21st century. To achieve this end, Vision 2030 has a perfect combination of the Kingdom’s tradition, heritage, and strategy. The Vision 2030 also highlights the three strategies of progress:
- Having a vivacious and flourishing society;
- Maintaining an incessantly growing and viable economy in all sectors; and
- Catering to the ambitions and aspirations of the Kingdom’s young generation.
This Vision aims to achieve balance in this context, and it also covers the legal services in Saudi Arabia. The goals of this Vision seeks to maximize the benefits of the Kingdom and ensure that the strategies are inter-dependable. The announcement of this Vision has stimulated the take-off of various national programs leading to the developments in official departments. These actions have created further ripples in the revaluation of the policies concerning the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the Kingdom.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia(KSA) in recent times has implemented some measures that will streamline the procedures and reduce the time consumption of customs clearance. In a broader sense, these implementations reflect the KSA government’s aspirations to transform the kingdom into a multinational logistical center and grow as regional and global transactional hub of commerce and trade. The new measures propose a contribution to the economic development of kingdom and appeals for a change in the Customs’ border control policy which can effectively curb the incursion of the products which breach the local, regional and international entities IPR.
Streamlined clearance protocols:
The newly implemented customs clearance protocols will streamline and shorten the customs clearance of goods. The procedures required to release the goods will be released according to a view of reducing the stipulated time of the usual 14 days to 24 hours. The documents needed for the customs approval will also be cut from the existing 12 to 5 documents. The documents required for the newly established protocols would be:
- The invoice
- The certificate of origin
- The delivery order;
- The bill of lading; and
- A document is proving the method of payment.
The Saudi customs are planning to enforce these new rules gradually and progressively in all ports of entry(including airports) to the Kingdom. Also, Mr. Ahmed Al-Hagbani, the Director General of the Saudi Customs issued a circular stating that an individual clearance certificate of origin of the goods will no longer be required if the goods bear a secure non-removable mark which specifies their place of origin. If the goods do not carry such non-removable mark which indicates their place of origin, a separate certificate of origin will be required as per the existing rules. These new measures will have a major sway on the Saudi customs effort to prevent the entry of counterfeit products into the Kingdom. The new measures are being drafted to speed up the process of customs clearance; however, at the same time, the Saudi customs are also aware of the imperative need of streamlining IP enforcement at all ports of entry.
Prevention of Trade frauds and IP trespassing goods:
The Saudi customs are always on the job of monitoring and preventing trade fraud with a particular emphasis on the import of counterfeit goods into the Kingdom. The recent success of Saudi customs in this prevention of counterfeit goods area has been lauded in the report issued by the World Customs Organisation (WCO). This report details that in the year 2016 Saudi customs seized goods which trespassed the third party intellectual property rights more than any other customs authority of WTO member countries. A total of 146 million infringing items were seized during 2016, and a 49 million of these were counterfeit.
To further tighten the security measures for the fast-tracking of customs clearance, Saudi customs has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) with companies for exchanging expertise and information in the area of anti-commercial fraud. The MOU will enable the companies to register its client’s trademarks with the Saudi customs which will help in monitoring the incoming shipments that are suspected to be counterfeit.
In accordance with this registration, the Saudi Customs are also working on a program that would enable the officials to alert the concerned parties of any shipment that bears the one or more trademark of the stakeholders. This alert would have the essential details of shipment that can be cross-checked with the stakeholders to verify the legitimacy of the goods and take legal action if the need arises. Such verification would necessitate responding to the customs alert by filing a complaint which would then lead to the stopping of the consignment, seizing the products in question and a thorough investigation of the concerned importer.
Saudi customs would then decide on the further course of action to be taken against the importer (levying of a fine, demolition of the products at the importer’s cost and additional escalation by referring the case to the public prosecution) as regards to their investigation.
This MOU with the Saudi Customs with the above-detailed features showcase welcomes signs of better and strict scrutinizing of border controls which are expected to support the accelerating custom clearance procedures. In the second phase, it is of the opinion that Saudi customs will implement related border control, registration and alert systems for patents, industrial designs, and copyright.
The summation:
The policy developments of the Saudi customs in the area of Intellectual Property Rights(IPR) are in perfect sync with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. The Saudi customs are acutely aware of the importance of maintaining a balance of sufficient procedures to speed up the clearance process and at the same time ensure adequate protection of the Intellectual Property Rights(IPR) at all ports of entry into the Kingdom.
