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The page views of the official portal of the UAE Government (Government.ae) surpassed 20 million, while portal users reached about 7.5 million (2.5 million are from outside the UAE) and users’ sessions on the portal reached 12 million in two years since the portal was revamped and enriched with content in April 2017, shares the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).
H. E. Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, Director General, TRA, says, “This huge number reflects the electronic presence of the UAE in the age of digital transformation, where the national portal represents the UAE Government on the internet. The UAE national portal is a main reference for information about the UAE Government’s services, policies and programmes.”
He adds, “The portal became has never stopped gaining importance ever since its launch in May 2011 by H. H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. By the TRA’s hard and continuous work to enrich and develop the portal, it became a central source of information for all segments of the society.”
Highlighting the importance of the portal, Mansoori says, “After the launch of the Smart Government initiative by the wise leadership in 2013, the portal gained importance as a one-stop shop for all government services, information and eParticipation. The portal supported the UAE’s attempt to fulfil and comply with the United Nation’s Online Service Index (OSI), one of the UAE National Agenda indicators. Eventually, the position of the portal as an official source of government information got solidified and reached these statistics.”
Statistics show that page about visa inquiry has the largest number of page views, followed by the page on value added tax and labour regulations indicating that the terms the portal users searched for on the portal’s search engine focussed on visas, jobs and taxes.
The portal’s ranking on the search engines jumped to the top in search results for many of the keywords used by people in their search for information and services provided by the UAE Government. 81.57 per cent users visited the portal through organic search and 37 per cent users come to the portal from countries such as India, Saudi Arabia, the UK, the USA and Egypt.
It is noteworthy that the TRA launched the revamped portal in April 2017, after implementing major updates that reflect the global developments and local needs. The portal management section conducted many user experience tests to monitor the needs of different groups of society and incorporated the results into the business requirements in the areas of content, design, accessibility of information and services and focusing on the people of determination in particular.
In May 2018, the TRA launched a campaign aiming at the development of the content of the portal, Government.ae. The mechanism of the campaign involves the target groups suggesting information that is missing on the portal and providing official references and sources of such information. The campaign achieved considerable success which resulted in adding and updating more than 100 topics. Based on this success, it was decided to continue the campaign during 2019. The campaign will be one of the several channels of communication between the users and portal management and to follow up on the interests and needs of the government’s customers.
The portal consists of four main sections; they are information and services, about the UAE, eParticipation and media. The information and services section addresses many topics such as employment, investment, tourism, infrastructure and visa, as well as a complete list of all government services in the UAE. The second section covers the history of the UAE in various eras, in addition to plans and strategies of shaping the UAE’s future and achieving a comprehensive development. This section also covers the UAE’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 set by the United Nations. In the eParticipation section, numerous channels of communication with the UAE government are available, apart from forum, blogs and consultations.
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