This file photo shows traffic congestion at the Saudi-Bahrain border. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states plan to link part of their traffic, business and customs systems in March to provide easier coordination and data exchange.

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan to link part of their traffic, business and customs systems in March to provide easier coordination and data exchange.

The GCC e-government ministerial committee will formally launch its joint portal at its meeting next month. This was decided at a meeting of the committee’s executive in Doha on Saturday.

Ali bin Saleh Al-Soma, adviser to the minister of communications and information technology and director general of the Kingdom’s e-government program (Yesser), said the system would ease the exchange of information.

“The network will serve GCC citizens directly for all services without the need to move from one country to another. The services that were reviewed during the meeting include traffic violations, business and corporate establishment services, country-to-country customs and tendering services and some mobility services at airports,” he said in a press statement issued after the meeting.

Abdullatif Surayie, director general of the Central Agency for Information Technology in Kuwait, announced that a pilot program has been launched to link networks in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He said the other countries would join the network over the next two weeks.

The Kingdom had previously undertaken to build a secure e-government network for GCC countries, which includes the GCC unified traffic system. Saudi Arabia also submitted a proposal for GCC countries to share information in a secure cloud application. This is aimed at reducing time and cost.

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