The study aims to estimate the effect of customs reform on exports in Egypt during the period (2008-2018) by using indicators of terminal handling time, customs release time and total customs work time as a measure of the independent variable (customs reform), while Egypt's non-oil exports are used as an indicator for the dependent variable (exports). The study sample consists of a quarterly data series starting from 2008 until 2018. The co-integration method and the MIDAS regression model were used to estimate data with different frequencies and analyze the relationship between the study variables. Also, the logarithmic formula is used to build the general model for the study along with conducting a unit root test to test the stationary of the study's variables.
The study revealed that the customs reform has a significant positive effect on the non-oil exports of Egypt during the stated period of study since, decreasing the terminal handling time, the customs release time and the total customs work time leads to increase the exports with (0.4655). However, the effect of the customs release time on exports is much more than the effect of the terminal handling time because a one-day reduction in the customs release time results in an increase in the Egyptian exports as a percent of the total GDP by (8.60%) and thus concentrating on decreasing the customs release time is more important than decreasing the time of terminal handling.