Oman is on the way to become a robust investment destination

Muscat: Oman is on the way to become a robust investment destination for foreign investors with its highly skilled talent pool of competitive manpower.

Strategically located, Oman has proximity to 59 million consumers across the markets of Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

It also has access to emerging markets in Asia and Africa , reaching a consumer base of one billion and also has good connectivity to trading route between east and west.

Even the rating agencies such as Moody’s has upgraded its outlook on the Government of Oman to ‘positive’ from ‘stable,’ and S&P has given BB plus a stable outlook.

With attractive laws and legislation and economic stability with a good GDP growth rate, Oman has all the ingredients to attract foreign investors.

The country has entered into free trade agreements with many countries and recent FTAs with Singapore, Switzerland, and Pakistan will further enhance trade opportunities in the near future.

With attractive laws and legislations, the country is ready for doing business as investors have been offered 100% business ownership.

Residency permits

Investors can even get five year and 10-year residency permits depending upon the volume of investments, said Abdullah Al Rawahi, Section head, Industry Analysis and Evaluation, Ministry of Commerce Industry and Investment Promotion, at a recent event in Mumbai.

Having robust infrastructure in terms of roads and strategic ports like Duqm, Salalah, and Sohar, Oman can become a logistics hub, said Abdullah Al Rawahi, Section head, Industry Analysis and Evaluation, from the Ministry of Commerce.

“The government has created a special arm to offer large scale investment opportunities. “15 government entities have been brought under one umbrella to offer a one-stop shop for investors. The relationship managers, online platform, fast track team, integrated services, go-to market team are all ready to serve the investors,” said Abdullah Al Rawahi.

Even financial facilities have been made available to investors with the help from Oman Investment Bank, Oman Development Bank and Future Generations Fund, he said, adding some laws such as the Foreign Capital Investment Law, the bankruptcy Law, the Public-Private Partnership Law, the Privatisation law, the Commercial Companies Law have all been made to create the bottlenecks for investments.

Many incentives have been offered including, up to 100 percent foreign ownership, , tax exemption up to 30 years, competitive land and Service prices, Customs duty exemptions, integrated e-services and investor residency up to 10 years, he added.