ICV stands for In-country Value, which was launched in the year 2018 in UAE[Abu Dhabi] by ADNOC [Abu Dhabi National Oil Company] to boost GDP diversification and economic strategy considerations. Due to the success of ICV, it was later implemented by MoIAT [Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology] in the year 2021. The ICV certification will allow all business owners to get tenders from government and semi-government organisations.
The ICV certification allows businesses to get more weightage and preference among suppliers. A business owner will ICV score based on their latest financial statements & other business evaluation.
There are three key objectives of implementing the ICV certification:
- Diversifying the GDP: Maximum Goods & services should be sourced domestically.
- Emiratization: Boost employment opportunities for all emiratis in private businesses.
- Strategic Considerations: Identify & find the critical points in the value chain that should be produced locally for the businesses.
To do this, you have to get your financials reviewed by an ICV auditor in Dubai. To help you further, we are going to share all the information you need to know about the ICV audit and how you can get the same for your business.
But, first, we need to know why an ICV audit is necessary for your business.
Conducting an ICV audit will help you to identify the gaps in your system and resolve internal problems in your business processes. ICV audit will help the companies to comply with all the ICV guidelines. The ICV certificate will assign you a score which testifies that your score is true and accurate!
Where to get your ICV audit done?
MOIAT [Ministry of industry and Advanced technology] has created a list of certifying bodies for the verification and issuance of ICV certificates.
Process of Getting an ICV certification in the United Arab Emirates
MOAIT has created a completely streamlined process to get an ICV certificate in the United Arab Emirates. The process to get an ICV certification is quite simple:
- Get your financial statements audited based on IFRS by a certified auditor.
- Once audited, then you have to fill and submit the application form as per the recent guidelines and financial statements.
The process is simple, but to do this smoothly, you have to get in touch with a certified auditor in the UAE. However, before doing that you must be aware of the conditions to obtain the ICV certificate in the United Arab Emirates.
Before you go ahead with your certification, you have to make sure that you fulfill the following conditions:
- If you have multiple businesses that you need to get certified, Then you have to get them audited separately to obtain an ICV certificate. This is because the government considers each business as a different entity, despite having the same owner.
- A combined ICV certificate is issued, when a company has different branches in the same emirate.
- The business owner should make sure that the figures provided in the ICV certificates match that of the audited statements as per the IFRS.
- All audited financial statements should be less than 2 years old during the certification year. For example, if you are applying for certification in the year 2022, then you cannot provide documents older than the year 2020.
- New companies can get their management accounts reviewed for a period of a minimum of 9 months for the issuance of ICV calculations.
- The validity of the ICV certificate is 14 months from the date of audited financial statements. Business owners who want to get any errors rectified can get the same done within the 14 months validity period.
- Businesses that provide/supply finished products to the customers are considered under the good manufacturer category during the ICV certification process. Before this, your business must have an industrial license issued in the UAE to be considered as a Goods manufacturer. If you do not have an industrial license, then you would be considered a service provider during the ICV certification process.
These are some of the key pointers that you need to know before applying for an ICV certification in the UAE. The majority of your problems would be taken care of when you consult with a certified ICV auditor.
The ICV score provided by the Certified auditors
Once you get in touch with a certified auditor, then the auditor will start with the process to calculate the ICV score for your goods and services offered. The score is an assessment of how much value your product/service adds to the country. The government has also stated many points to calculate the ICV score:
- Revenue
- Investment
- Exports
- Contribution to the emiratis living outside the country
- Emiratization
- Any third-party expenditures
ICV certification is important for your business and AMAJ can assist you get that done!
