Annual report on diversification efforts

Muscat: Implementation Support and Follow-up Unit (ISFU) prepares to publish its first annual report for 2017 since its establishment as per the Royal Decree No.50/2016.
ISFU endeavours to follow up and support the economic diversification projects that came out of the National Economic Diversification Program ‘Tanfeedh’. At the initial stage, the programme included manufacturing, logistic, labour market, employment, finance and business environment sectors. It was then followed by laboratories for fisheries, energy and mining sector.
In carrying out these labs, ISFU relies on the 9th five-year development plan which identified 19 social and economic sectors for the support of economic diversification in the Sultanate.
The annual report is an important part of ISFU as it includes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) board, which highlight the main efforts done by the public and private organizations to enhance economic diversification, as well as the efforts done by ISFU to follow up and support the programs and projects of Tanfeedh, the new labs, the Sharakah projects of the Diwan of the Royal Court and a number of other major strategic projects. It also displays the vision, mission and values of ISFU, as well as its roles and responsibilities and practical examples for the support it seeks to provide.
To ensure transparency, ISFU has mandated KPMG to validate the key performance indicators and control board by appointing dedicated staff at Tanfeedh to ensure accurate transparency and follow up.
ISFU has earlier initiated detailed discussion with a number of academicians and economists, in addition to representatives of the World Bank.
The experts stressed the need to expedite improvement of business environment to provide the conducive milieu that attracts investments and eliminate lengthy procedures.
They also highlighted the need to improve the skills of Omanis and consider the mechanisms followed in amending some law and amend them if the need arises.
ISFU also held two separate sessions at which 35 public and private CEOs took part. The participants reviewed the key challenges facing business environment in the Sultanate and the proper solutions to overcome them.
The annual report will review in detail the indicators of the five sectors of the National Economic Diversification Program ‘Tanfeedh’. It will review the strategic objectives of each sector, the key initiatives and projects that the sector come out with, the relevant stakeholders involved in implementation, the challenges facing the initiatives and the projects for each sector.
ISFU will later publish the outputs of the fisheries labs which were held in September 2017 and the energy and mining labs which were held in March 2017.
The outputs were not included in the annual report for 2017 as they were received at later period. Work is underway to develop the detailed plans for the projects and initiatives which are expected to be included in ISFU’s annual report for 2018.