252 applications submitted for exemption of imports

Muscat: There were 252 applications submitted by the industrial establishments seeking customs and tax exemptions under the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries model ‘b’ during the first quarter of 2019.
These applications were cleared through Bayan system and these exemptions were sought for imports of equipment, spare parts and raw materials. This was a significant increases over 139 exemption requests of the same period in 2018.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that the number of applications submitted in January this year were 71, compared with 43 in January 2018. In February of this year, the number of these applications submitted was 89 while during the same period in 2018, it was just 59. There were 92 applications submitted in March this year, compared with 37 of March 2018.
The Ministry said that the number of applications of industrial establishments seeking exceptions from income tax about which decisions were taken electronically in the first quarters of last year reached to 70, compared with 49 during the same period in 2018.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that the increase in the number of exemption permits and applications for customs exemption was due to the new trend of using electronic system “Invest Easy” of the ministry and “Bayan” of the Royal Oman Police. This has resulted in speedy processing of the applications, easy movements of goods important and exported from the Sultanate of Oman and reducing the cost of export and import.