Dubai, Asharq Al-Awsat- Dubai eGovernment, the region’s most advanced digital governance project, initiated by the Government of Dubai has announced that its pioneering portal, www.dubai.ae, has received record responses from the public during 2005. The user traffic to the portal increased by an overwhelming 167 per cent last year, with the number of visitors to the site going up by 115,777 from 69,286 in January 2005 to touch 185,063 visitors in December 2005.
The DeG’s portal offers an integrated online eService window for various Departments of Government of Dubai, where people can conduct their transactions and interface with the government round the clock and across all geographies.
Salem Al Shair, eServices Director, Dubai eGovernment said: “The response to our innovative portal from Dubai residents and visitors reflects their awareness of using the eService to get their work done especially with an innovative, secure and transparent portal like www.dubai.ae .”
The percentage of international visitors using the website grew more than three-fold from 13.28 per cent in March 2005 to 47.74 per cent in December 2005. This was as a result of the enhanced position in tourism that Dubai achieved in the world. The number of new visitors accessing the portal more than doubled during the year, from 18,959 in January to 48,365 in December 2005 while repeat visits increased three-fold from 4,562 in the first month of the year to 12,893 by December end.
The portal also saw a steady increase in the average number of visitors accessing its online services throughout the year. From a low average of 2,235 daily visitors in January 2005, the number more than doubled to 5,969 by the end of the year but rose three-fold in September, reaching the highest average of 6,538 visitors per day.
“The marked increase in number of people adopting eServices through the portal is an indication the ever reducing gap between state-of-the-art infrastructure, quality of eServices and the expectations of the people using the services,” added Al Shair.
Al Shair also stressed on the role played by the portal in easing the daily lives of people and of businesses in Dubai, as the service provides then with the highest standards in security and reliability.
The UAE, with a total of 1.9 million Internet users or 34.7 per cent of the total population, has been named as one of the world’s top countries in terms of e-government readiness in a recent report published by the United Nations Online Public Network and Finance (UNPAN) agency. It states that the UAE has posted one of the most “impressive year-over-year gains” among all the countries of the world after moving up from a ranking of 60 in 2004 to 42 in 2005.