The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Development, have held a consultation workshop on National Single Window (NSW) Project. The consultation workshop was held at Kurumba Maldives. The consultation workshop on National Single Window (NSW) Project gathered government and private stakeholders to review the progress on ongoing preparatory work on NSW project and discuss the action plans for the next step.
Addressing the inauguration ceremony, Minister of Economic Development Mohamed Saeed called on every institution present at the workshop to work towards the end result, rather than stopping implementation with the kickoff of the project. Noting that kicking off is easier and achieving the end goals are not, Economic Minister Saeed stated end results are impossible unless government agencies and stakeholders attach significant importance to making it a reality.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) is supporting the government of Maldives to prepare a NSW in line with the operational priorities for trade facilitation.
The Economic Minister thanked officials of ADB for the dedication towards the project and convincing the Maldivian authorities on the importance of establishing such an online platform for the trade sector and the state to benefit immensely. The Minister highlighted the achievements of the past four years, noting that President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom prioritises large scale investments in the country with the belief that Maldives can capitalise on the growth of the century.
The consultation workshop on NSW Project serves as a venue to share the knowledge and experience on the implementation of the NSW system. The NSW will provide an efficient environment for streamlined international trade procedures between private sector stakeholders and border control agencies, leverage information and communication technology to provide online access to carry out border control procedures and enable traders and other service providers to exchange electronic forms and documents, thereby eliminating the need for physical displacement.
In addition, automated processing across stakeholder systems will be enabled by the exchange of harmonised data. The NSW environment will thus provide a much more efficient set of standardised and transparent international trade procedures, enhanced border control, and more readily available data on trade flows.