The Member States of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) seek to simplify customs procedures within the GCC Customs Union with a view to increasing Intra-GCC trade and international trade, as well as compilation, comparison and analysis of statistics of Intra-GCC trade and international trade. To cope with the latest developments in customs procedures and the relevant international standards, and to achieve the anticipated objectives of the GCC Customs Union, The GCC Supreme Council (32nd Session, Riyadh, December 2011) resolved to unify the customs procedures in order to ensure uniform application of the GCC standards and implementation of the requirements of the agricultural and veterinary quarantine, as well as control of the counterfeited and fraudulent commodities across GCC first points of entry, and avoid repetition of the customs procedures at Intra-GCC customs ports, excluding those procedures that have not been applied at the first points of entry. Accordingly, the GCC Customs Union Authority had instructed (in June 2012) the Customs Procedures & Computerization Committee to prepare the “Unified Guide of Customs Procedures at GCC First points of Entry”. To this effect, the Customs Procedures & Computerization Committee and the GCC Secretariat General have finalized preparation of the “Unified Guide of Customs Procedures at GCC First points of Entry”, which was endorsed by the Financial & Economic Cooperation Committee in May 2014, and it was agreed that said Guide would be implemented as of January 2015 across all GCC first points of entry.