MUSCAT: The Institutional Performance Evaluation Unit for ministries and government agencies will meet the community’s need to know the performance of sectors, economic activities and achievements and existing challenges, Oman’s Minister of Economy said during his talk with the youth.

The talk focused on the reality of the Omani economy and future aspirations.

Minister of Economy His Excellency Dr. Saeed bin Muhammad Al-Saqri said, “The private sector is expected to witness a great economic movement in the coming period. It’ll contribute to the development and performance of the various economic sectors and the growth in the GDP. This will become an attractive sector for Omani job seekers, indicating that the private sector is the largest employee for Omanis compared to the government sector.”

His Excellency has clarified that the government has recently issued a set of laws needed by the private sector. These include partnership laws, privatisation and bankruptcy, and the new commercial law, and is in the process of issuing a labor law. Additionally, the incentives and facilities provided by the special economic zones and free zones, which will enable the sector to play its role in the next stage.

His Excellency also pointed out that the volume of foreign investment in the Sultanate of Oman has increased in 2021. This confirms the interest of foreign companies to invest in the various sectors in the Sultanate and the favorable local investment environment. He also reviewed the development budget supervised by the Ministry of Economy and the size of the expected investments of the Omani Investment Authority and the private sector during the current year.

His Excellency also indicated that the government is working on several programs, including the in-country value program. The aim is to enhance the role of small and medium enterprises to benefit from the government projects. These are being implemented, noting that the process of facilitating the business environment continues, and there is a ministerial committee supervised by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment Promotion to study this environment and make it the best environments for investment.

His Excellency also spoke about the economic projects in the Sultanate of Oman, which will lead the next phase of the Special Economic Zone at Duqm. These include large and promising projects and free zones, in addition to qualitative projects in the field of renewable energy, alternative clean energy, green hydrogen and other projects that reduce dependence on oil revenues.

Lastly, the minister said that the development of the governorates is one of the priorities and strategic objectives of the tenth five-year plan, strengthening its role and supporting decentralisation. An amount of OMR 20 million has been allocated to each governorate to be spent during the years of the plan.

The minister explained that the ministry has held several workshops with the offices of the governors to strengthen the issue of planning for the development of the governorates and to discuss the mechanism for allocating and distributing those resources.