Al Mouj Muscat identifies potential investors abroad

Muscat: Al Mouj Muscat has identified locations abroad for promoting their properties.
The three-year promotion plan will target individuals from East Africa, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Iraq and Iran as potential investors in Al Mouj and Omani markets as a whole.
Al Mouj has been actively promoting its properties abroad with great success and has enjoyed the best year since its inception in terms of sales. It has sold, both its most expensive villa and apartment, to foreign buyers this year and plans to generate an interest in the Omani industrial markets, which is crucial to Oman’s diversification plan.
Speaking to the Times of Oman at the launch of the ‘Oman Investment Handbook,’ published through a collaboration among Ithraa (Public Authority Investment Promotion and Export Development), Al Mouj and KPMG and which summarises Oman’s investment potential, Nasser Al Shibani, chief executive officer (CEO) of Al Mouj Muscat explained Al Mouj Muscat’s strategy and the importance of promoting Oman as a country.
“For the next three years, we have identified our target audience and location. This includes countries from East Africa and the GCC, along with Iraq and Iran, where we see a huge potential for investing abroad. The major goal that we are aiming for now is promoting Oman as a whole, instead of getting buyers for a property in Al Mouj. You can’t expect international buyers to buy from you when there is little information about the country you are based in,” he said.
Al Mouj in partnership with Ithraa and KPMG has launched the ‘Oman Investment Handbook,’ a promotional summary that contains information significant for investors abroad.
His Highness Sayyid Faisal bin Turki Al Said, Ithraa’s Director General of Investment Promotion, said the authority is committed to Oman’s investment promotion and Al Mouj Muscat is a part of it. “We are committed to promoting Oman at every stage and in every sector and Integrated Tourism Complexes (ITC) is one of them,” he said.
He also said Ithraa prefers partnerships with specialised organisations to promote Oman. “One of the most important challenges is to speed up the process of diversification; therefore we need to identify potential markets and investors and what we have to offer them. We need to define our product and convince the investors that it is worth putting their investment in. All of this requires expertise from different backgrounds and partnerships with organisations is an excellent way to move forward. At the end of it, what Ithraa produces is the product of everyone involved as we don’t own any sectors,” he added.
Al Mouj CEO Al Shibani stressed that the partnership between these firms is necessary for the development of the Omani economy. “We partnered with Ithraa and KPMG in this handbook so that we could complement each other’s expertise and produce a comprehensive handbook, which would include an investment scenario in Oman, laws and legislations for doing business, key sectors and the real-estate market,” he said.
He also added that such partnerships are very desirable for promoting Oman outside.
Speaking to the Times of Oman, Ashok Hariharan, head of Tax Services at KPMG, said that products from such partnerships create a synergy that have a greater outreach and appeal for more audience when compared with separate initiatives.
“Every organisation unveils their reports and studies, but when organisations come together to promote it has a stronger effect.”