JEDDAH: The Ports Development Co., the owner and developer of the King Abdullah Port, announced that building a central operations room for monitoring and linking customs X-ray inspection systems in the port has been completed. A wireless network will connect all customs inspection areas. The project has been delivered to Saudi Customs at King Abdullah Port, making the port a pioneer in activating a 24-hour container inspection initiative. Managing Director of the Ports Development Company, Abdullah Hameedadin said: “This achievement comes within King Abdullah Port’s efforts to support the Saudi Customs’ initiative, as well as enhancing customs operations in the port in line with the goals of Vision 2030.”
The project was completed over two phases, the first of which included equipping all customs inspection areas with a 1.75 GB wireless network. Customs officers will be able to inspect containers using a tablet in the inspection area and directly send all comments to the system without having to do it the traditional way, which required leaving the site and returning to the office to manually input the information. In the second phase, inspection equipment in the port was connected using fiber optics to the central operating room, which, in turn, is connected to the customs system through its wireless network, with a speed of up to 2 GB per second.
Saudi Customs earlier confirmed that successfully clearing containers within 24 hours of arrival primarily depends on establishing the import statement prior to the container’s arrival. This enables the department and government entities to finalize procedures while the containers are still on the vessels. The department clarified that containers are transferred upon their arrival directly from the vessel to X-ray inspection and then to final clearance.
