​‘Removing NOC will attract investment in Oman’

Muscat: Removing No Objection Certificate (NOC) will attract investment in Oman, according to a senior official from the Ministry of Manpower.
Read also: Plan to scrap No Objection Certificates in Oman
“Removing the NOC option will attract investment,” said Said bin Nasser Al Saadi, the advisor to the Minister for Manpower, in an exclusive interview with Times of Oman.
Meanwhile, experts and top officials in Oman have welcomed the Ministry of Manpower’s plan to remove NOC.
Anchan CK, an investment advisor in Oman, said that modifying the labour laws will certainly help Oman.
“Modifying labour laws will certainly impact onerous cost and legal hurdles that inhibit free market competition and allow Oman to get repositioned as a regional destination for business owners,” the investment advisor added.
Recently, United Arab Emirates relaxed its labour laws and Qatar is coming out with a labour law scrapping its NOC in December, easing entry and exit norms for expatriate workers.
Ahmed Al Hooti, an Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry member, said protection should be put in place for Omani businesses, in the event of scrapping the NOC.
“Our situation is different than that of UAE or Qatar. The private sector comprises 80 to 85 per cent of labourers and the majority is unskilled labor.
“There are hundreds of thousands of Omanis working in the private sector and some of them run their own businesses. If the rule is waived without taking them into consideration, they will have a lot of competition from expatriate workers, so we must protect them,” he added.