Expatriate numbers in Oman drop below two million

Muscat: The number of expats in the Sultanate has dropped below 2 million for the first time in two years, new data from NCSI has revealed.
According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information, as of Sunday, June 9, there were 2,650,418 Omanis and 1,997,763 expats in the Sultanate, which means expats account for 43 per cent of the country’s total population.
This is the lowest the expat population percentage has been since April 2016.
There has been a steady reduction in the number of expats working in Oman since the government introduced its Omanisation policy.
The Omanisation campaign started at the beginning of 2018, which included the implementation of a six-month visa ban for expatriates across 87 jobs.
The ban was further extended in July 2018 for the second time, and again in February 2019 for the third time.
The ban was again extended this month, in an effort to create more jobs for Omanis.
Prominent among them include visas for sales and marketing professionals and procurement representatives.
More than 60,000 Omanis have been given jobs in private sector companies, as part of the Omanisation policy in recent months.
And with Oman looking to step up its Omanisation plans in the future, Shiv Gupta, CEO of a private firm, said: “It’s good news for the Sultanate because the country is becoming dependent more on the local workforce. It means more jobs for the local youth passing out of colleges.”