The planning of this new layout began during the CPD Development Workshop in Doha in 2013, where it was investigated if there was any possibility to amend the 1954 Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation of Private Road Vehicles to implement other language versions of CPDs.

The proposal to include an Arabic version of the CPD required a contracting party to officially submit the proposal to the United Nations in New York. With assistance from ATCUAE President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the proposal was submitted via the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the UN in New York in 2015.

Later in 2015, a point was reached where no contracting parties reported any objections to the amendment to Annex 1 of the 1954 Convention regarding the CPD layout. The amendment approved the printing of CPDs in two UN official languages provided one of them was English or French and that the CPDs were used in a specific region. In the case of the Arabic CPDs, the region of use is the Middle East.

Together with Customs Council Chairman Riyadh Almalik, and the Arab speaking members of the Customs Council, the FIA’s Travel and Tourism Services Department supervised the translation of the original layout of the CPDs.

The official launch of the CPDs in English/Arabic will be shared once the FIA Administration has updated he Customs Organisations on the status of this new layout.