70 per cent of Oman vision 2020 goals achieved, says top official

Energy Thursday 17/October/2019 12:38 PM
By: Times News Service
70 per cent of Oman vision 2020 goals achieved, says top official

Muscat: 70 per cent of the 2020 vision goals have been achieved, according to Talal bin Sulaiman Al Rahbi, Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Planning (SCP).

“A huge project is underway, namely the tenth five-year plan, the first operational plan for Vision 2040, noting that Sultan Qaboos University and its students will be partners in the preparation of this plan,” he said.

“70 per cent of the 2020 vision goals have been achieved despite some challenges, and that Oman is the first country in the region to have a vision,” Al Rahbi added.

Al Rahbi was speaking at a student dialogue session at the Sultan Qaboos University on development planning and the path of the Omani economy.

Commenting on the issue of job seekers, he said: “This is one of the challenges that we are working to overcome and a number of ideas and plans have been put forward to address this issue, including the creation of a national training fund that will directly supply the sectors with human resources.”

He explained that construction sector is one of the most important reasons for the presence of expatriate labour largely because Omanis shun off working in this sector.

He pointed out that the percentage of Omanis in the private sector represents about 15 per cent of the total workforce, attributing this to the weak role of the private sector in the economy.

He also said that private sector employment is still weak and the government is still the biggest employer. And the other challenge, he said, is the desire of most people to work in the government sector and government companies.

“Increasing the Omanisation rate in the private sector is a big challenge and the attempt to address it is still going on even in Vision 2040. There is a big part of the role of the private sector in being attractive for Omani job seekers,” he added.