Business Corruption

Customs administration is considered to be prone to corruption by companies as well as individual citizens. According to the World Economic Forum Global Enabling Trade Report 2010, bureaucracy related to trade across borders opens the way for public officials to demand bribes in Saudi Arabia. For example, trade may be impeded by customs procedures that may lack efficiency, and exporting and importing may require time-consuming paperwork to clear goods at the border. Corruption and bribery in these processes are not uncommon.

Despite legal provisions set out in the Basic Law which guarantee the privacy of homes and mail correspondence, the US Department of State 2010 reports that customs officials often open mail and shipments to search for contraband, including material deemed pornographic or which appears to be non-Sunni Islamic religious material.

A prominent Saudi businessman interviewed by Arab News in 2009 reported that petty corruption was rampant in customs services, and revealed that most of his customs-related work involved paying bribes. He further stated that the amount of the bribe increased in relation to the financial interest in the procedure, i.e. the larger the cargo, the larger the bribe paid.

Political Corruption

According to the US Department of State 2008, the government arrested and punished police and border guards involved in smuggling and corruption in 2008.

Asharq Al-Awsat reports in a July 2009 article that the Saudi Border Guard confiscated large quantities of drugs, alcohol, weapons and ammunition and arrested 1084 smugglers during the second quarter of 2008. The Saudi government has signed a contract with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company to build an 8.500 km fence along the Saudi Arabian borders to prevent illegal immigrants and smugglers from entering the country.

Frequency

The World Bank & IFC: Doing Business 2011:
- A standard export shipment of goods requires 5 documents and takes 13 days at a cost of USD 580 per container.

- A standard import shipment of goods requires 5 documents and takes 17 days at a cost of USD 686 per container.

- This makes the costs and procedures involved in importing and exporting in Saudi Arabia slightly more time-consuming than the average for OECD countries, but almost twice as cheap.

World Economic Forum: The Global Enabling Trade Report 2010:
- Business executives give the efficiency of customs procedures (formalities regulating the entry and exit of merchandise) in Saudi Arabia score of 4.8 on a 7-point scale (1 'extremely inefficient' and 7 'extremely efficient').

- Business executives give the transparency of border administration (the pervasiveness of undocumented extra payments or bribes connected with imports and exports) a score of 4.3 on a 7-point scale (1 'common' and 7 'never occurs').