70% of Oman’s 2020 vision goals achieved: Al Rahbi

Business Saturday 19/October/2019 21:21 PM
By: Times News Service
70% of Oman’s 2020 vision goals achieved: Al Rahbi

Muscat: Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Planning Talal bin Sulaiman Al Rahbi said that 70 per cent of the 2020 vision goals have been achieved.

“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. He 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 the presence of expatriate labour in the construction sector is largely because Omanis shun 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.

Talal bin Sulaiman Al Rahbi, Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Planning (SCP).