Wednesday 30 / October / 2024
Muscat: The Special Economic Zone Authority of Duqm (Sezad), with the participation of a number of companies operating in Duqm on Monday, launched its promotional campaign in the People's Republic of China, which will continue for 10 days.
The campaign comes as Sezad seeks to attract new Chinese companies to invest in Duqm, which is currently building a Chinese Industrial City in an area of 1,172 hectares under the umbrella of Oman Wanfang company.
The city of Jinan, located in Shandong Province, is a major industrial and economic centre in China. Yahya bin Saeed Al Jabri, Chairman of Sezad, called on Chinese businessmen and investors to invest in Duqm.
In a speech at the opening of the "Invest in Duqm" seminar held on Monday in Jinan, China, he said that the Duqm is the largest private economic zone in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. It has several industry, tourism, logistics, real estate development and a multi-purpose port, airport, dry dock for ship repair, fishing port and fish industries.
He said that the Authority provides a number of facilities and incentives, including allowing the foreign investor to own 100 per cent of the projects and tax exemption for up to 30 years, renewable for a similar period, and it also provides an ease of facilities such as customs visa for expat workforce which the project needs.
He also called on investors and representatives of Chinese companies to explore investment opportunities in the region.
Zhang Jing, general manager of Oman Wanfang, China, praised the investment environment in the economic zone of Duqm and said the facilities received by the Chinese-Omani Industrial City are very good.
In a video presentation during the seminar, he reviewed the projects focused in the city and the progress of the work and said that a number of projects have been completed and work started on several commercial projects.
The China-Oman Industrial City is expected to include some 35 projects at a cost of about US$10.7 billion.
The promotional campaign in China, organised by Sezad, in cooperation with the Oman WanFang and aims to attract new investment and promote China's industrial city.
The seminar highlighted the infrastructure of the region, the various project components such as Duqm port, dry dock, airport, Duqm Refinery and Ras Markaz oil storage station. The seminar also focused on the investment climate in the region and the incentives, benefits and facilities obtained by the investing companies.
Officials of Sezad and Oman WanFang, in their answers to investors' questions, stressed that the region has many encouraging elements for investment, noting the efforts exerted by both sides to speed up the work of the Chinese-Omani Industrial City.
The seminar included a number of visual presentations Sezad, the General Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development (Ithraa), Port Duqm Company and Oman Dry Dock Company.
