Business & Money | Saturday 1 April, 2017 4:30 am |

According to Oxford Business Group, a major piece of legislation on foreign FDI is currently under review of the Ministry of Legal Affairs. The new FDI law is expected to allow 100% foreign ownership throughout the sultanate, along with a slew of other incentives for investors. The plan to increase FDI also includes targeting specific sectors that hold significant growth potential, such as mining, fisheries, manufacturing, tourism, and transport and logistics.

 

A high-profile delegation from the Sultanate of Oman is going to participate in the 7th edition of the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) that will be held from April 2-4, 2017, at the Dubai World Trade Centre, under the theme ‘International Investment, Path to Competitiveness & Development’.

 

“Annual Investment Meeting 2017 is a very important event. It brings together different countries, companies, and authorities. Also it provides the chance to meet and connect with investment experts and big investors under one roof. We believe that Sultanate participation in the 7th edition of AIM will help creating investment opportunities in the Sultanate, and enhance the relations with the global investment entities from all over the world. Sultanate of Oman has the potentials to be primary destination for investors. It enjoys strategic location near the emerging markets in the Middle East, East Africa, and India. It has also network of advanced logistic services which helps investors to stay connected with international markets. The legal framework in Oman protects the investors and help them to grow their business in open country and beautiful country,” said HH Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said of the Oman Public Authority of Investment Promotion an Export Development (ITHRAA).

“The government of Oman focuses on specific sectors to grow from 2015 to 2020, and these sectors are: transformative industries, logistic services, tourism, Fisheries, and mining. The Sultanate welcomes as well investments in other sectors, whether secondary investments like waste management, or supporting sectors such as educations and health care,” continued HH Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said.

“This year, we in (ITHRAA) will keep our campaign “Invest in Oman”. Our target is to position the Sultanate on the international investment map. ITHRAA showcases the opportunities, incentives, and proper investment climate in Oman. We focus on the targeted sectors in the 9th five years plan in the country. We in (ETHRAA) prepared a study in 2015 to promote investment in the Sultanate, according to this study we chose highly important sectors to be promoted in 25 countries. We chose these countries based on many standards. we target several markets, and we organise plenty of meetings with potential investors from many Asian and European countries, as well as from GCC. We offer the investors many incentives to start their projects in the Sultanate, such as facilitate obtaining approvals and licenses, find the suitable partners, and issue the commercial record,” added HH Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said.

“Our statistics show that foreign direct investment in the Sultanate crossed OMR 7.6 billion in 2014, with 9.1 per cent increase comparing to 2013. These FDI came from 50 countries, UK comes number one in terms of investment in Oman, followed by UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, USA, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Oil and gas is still the most attracting field for FDI with 33.9% of the total foreign investment in the Sultanate, followed by financial brokerage with 30.1%, then transformative industries with 20.5%. Our goal is to increase the FDI in the future, especially with the national direction toward diversification of the national economy,” said HH Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said.

“GCC investment in Oman has grew significantly between 2010 and 2013. It has reached over OMR 1938 million in 2013. In 2014, it went back to OMR 1780 million, because of the fluctuations in the oil prices. However GCC were and always will be targeted by our investment promotion plans. While when we talk about the collaboration between the Sultanate and UAE, we will notice that UAE is the biggest investor in Oman among the Gulf countries. The UAE is also the second investor in Oman generally with over 46% of the FDI in the Sultanate in 2014. On the other hand the volume of the commercial exchange between the two countries is growing constantly. In 2016, the volume of imports from UAE has crossed OMR 4 billion, comparing to OMR 1.3 in 2015,” added HH Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said.

“The Sultanate enjoys many incentives that makes the country perfect destination for investment. The government offers investors many incentives such as: zero tax on personal income, the possibility of getting 5 years’ tax exemptions in certain investment fields outside the free zones. In addition, Oman provides competitive interest rate on the financial facilities provided by financial institutions. The Sultanate also allows 70% ownership for the foreign investors, with no limits on transferring the profits outside the Sultanate. On the other hand, Oman has signed more than 35 agreements to protect and encourage investment, the Sultanate signed free trade agreement with USA, EFTA countries (Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway), and Singapore. Also, the Sultanate is part of the Arab Free Trade Area, and the Gulf common market. The taxes on companies in the Sultanate is not complicated, the income tax on the companies with more than OMR 30,000 is around 12% only. The Sultanate is taking serious steps to enhance the non-oil sectors. The government launched the national programme for enhancing economic diversification (Tanfeedh). According to this program, the government will focus on certain promising fields such as: transformative Industries, logistics, tourism, finance, labor market and employment,” concluded HH Sayyid Faisal Bin Turki Al Said.

“Oman rose three places in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2017’ report, taking the 66th position globally. The sultanate also jumped 127 places in the ‘starting a business’ category to a rank of 32, the highest in the MENA region. On the other side, the UAE is among the most promising home economies from the perspective of IPAs, for 2016-2018, along with China, USA, UK, Germany, France, India, Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Australia, South Africa and Norway. Given this, we are very excited to use AIM 2017 to explore all these measures to enhance FDI inflows regionally and learn from each other’s experiences,” said Dawood Al Shezawi, CEO, AIM’s Organising Committee.

Oman pavilion in the 7th edition of Annual Investment Meeting includes group of high-profile authorities and companies in the Sultanate such as: Ithraa, Port of Duqm, Oman Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Special Economic Zone.