Muscat: The Public Establishment for Industrial Estates – Madayn, represented by Sur Industrial City, honoured yesterday (Tuesday) the outstanding factories based in Sur Industrial City for the year 2019 under the auspices of Eng. Musallam bin Mohammed Al Shehri, Assistant Chief Executive Officer of Madayn for Operations. 

Speaking at the event, Mubarak bin Salim Al Ghailani, Director of Admin at Sur Industrial City said, “This is the fourth consecutive year that Sur Industrial City honours its outstanding factories. In fact, we aim at making Sur Industrial City a distinctive industrial destination and one of the key economic pillars of the Sultanate. We are currently working on three main aspects which include boosting the investment components and characteristics, attracting new investments, and maintaining and sustaining existing investments.”

He added, “As for the coming period, we will focus on the necessity of establishing a jetty that serves the current and future projects and enhances the investment environment in Sur Industrial City. There are several projects under procedures and evaluation, which we hope will get localised alongside the jetty project. Besides, this project will contribute to the provision of job opportunities for the citizens.”

Al Ghailani informed that during the past months, Sur Industrial City carried out a study that included field visits and meetings with large, medium and small companies. “We were able to monitor several challenges faced by these companies and came up with recommendations to tackle these challenges,” he noted.

With the objective of enhancing the investment environment in Sur Industrial City, a tender has recently been floated for the project of developing clusters of small and medium enterprises at a total cost touching RO10 million. “It is hoped that the implementation of this project will begin early next year. Moreover, efforts are being made to advance the efficiency of water and sewerage services in the industrial city and we expect to contract with a specialised company by the beginning of next year,” Al Ghailani added. 

Sur Industrial City will also see the activation of Masar Investment Window by the second quarter of next year, which will eventually facilitate the transactions made by the investors.  A number of investment opportunities will also be offered with the aim of providing various support services to the investors. These include the establishment of an integrated maintenance centre to serve vehicles and trucks, as well as a project that provides residential services for the employees of companies and some investment opportunities related to health, entertainment, hotel and other services.

The event also highlighted the objectives of Madayn Industrial Academy and Industrial Innovation Centre and the services they offer to the factories and companies based in Madayn industrial cities.  On his part, Dr. Khamis Al Muniri, executive director at Madayn Industrial Academy, delivered a presentation highlighting Madayn’s efforts in developing the national cadres through various training opportunities. Madayn Industrial Academy was established with the objective of putting an emphasis on the field of training and developing the human cadres. The academy provides vocational and technical training programmes to develop the capabilities of Omani cadres and raise their productivity.

Dr. Talal Al Wahaibi, Director of Industrial Sectors’ Innovation at Industrial Innovation Centre (IIC), gave a brief on the centre emphasising that the centre aims at inspiring a strong, sustainable and enduring culture of innovation in the Omani industry through establishing an impactful industrial innovation eco-system capable of accelerating Oman’s economic diversification, driving the global competitiveness and boosting the contribution of the industry to the nation’s GDP.