Friday 15 / November / 2024
Muscat: Oman's industrial sector exports is expected to reach OMR10.7 billion by 2040, a senior official of Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, said.
The value addition in the industrial sector would grow steadily to almost four times by about 40 per cent by 2040, said Engineer Salim bin Suleiman Al Hatami, Acting Director of the Department of Planning and Industrial Studies at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion.
This he added was the ministry's emphasisis on Industrial Strategy 2040 to make Oman a technically advanced manufacturing base.
“Since the publication of the first phase of the strategy document in January 2019, the key performance indicators of the Industrial Strategy 2040 have been reviewed and formulated again,” Al Hatami said.
"These reviews show that the data of recent years as well as those of available investment opportunities and priority industries were made available and included those of recycling industries and transportation equipment industries. These data were not available before," he added.
He said that it was intended to achieve a nearly six-fold increase in the constant value addition of high-tech and medium-sized industries, as priority industries are expected to grow very swiftly and much faster than any other industry. High-tech industries are also expected to expand. It is also likely that high-tech and medium non-priority industries may also increase by the five percent.
There have also been plans to establish industrial complexes, which include health, environment, commodity production, electrical and mechanical equipment, transportation equipment, steel and glass, and foodstuffs, Al Hatami said.
There is an expectation that health and recycling clusters will grow faster and both will start from an exceptionally low base. The electromechanical sector would show strong performance, he added.
“It is expected that the strategic or priority industries will expand by 4.5 times over the next 20 years and they will be driven by the group of high-tech industries through steel, glass and foodstuff complexes," he said.
The petrochemical sector is expected to expand slightly less than other priority and average manufacturing industries and will also remain the most important industry in 2040, representing at least 37 per cent of the manufacturing sector.
"The Fourth Industrial Revolution will have wide-ranging effects on manufacturing processes and production with modern technologies will become faster and more diversified. The integration between companies and their customers will also grow. These developments will lead to significant increase in productivity and decrease in job opportunities if countries would not innovate and produce new products and industries to compensate for the losses in the old products," he said.
Al Hatami pointed out that the rapidly expanding industries were those which require heavy capital (one of the strategic industrial groups specified in the Industrial Strategy 2040).
It, in turn, will reduce the technological gap with developed countries leading to increased adoption of production and communication technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to the development of the latest technologies and skills.
It is also expected that the Industrial Strategy 2040 will contribute to incentives for research and development, in addition to closer and stronger relations between universities and industry.
"This will allow the graduates to get deeper understanding of the new technologies and contribute largely to the production activity. The interest of the academics in issues related to manufacturing would help them transform the focus of the research projects towards strengthening of industries. This many also improve outcomes of their own efforts," he further added.
