High oil prices is spurring economic boom in the country and there seems to be a renewed thrust on infrastructure and development projects in Oman. How long is this boom going to continue?

The steady growth of the Omani economy was attributed to increase of oil price, and domestic demand, improvement of investment environment and increase of foreign demand on local non-oil products. Also, the added value of non-oil activities rose to RO 6190.8 million during 2005, compared to RO 5671 million in 2004. That is to say, the economic growth is not attributed to oil prices only but also to non-oil activities.

It is always difficult to predict what will happen regarding oil prices, but oil production in Oman is expected to increase in the coming years as a number of new projects are being undertaken to boost crude oil production. Beside that, new projects in Oman aid the process of economic diversification and generate new income.

There have been a slew of new projects and substantial foreign investment happening in Oman since the past few years. What do you attribute this phenomenon to?

That’s because the government attaches highest importance to attracting foreign investment to Oman. It provides several advantages and incentives to encourage foreign investment. Some of them are:
- Free and open market – oriented economic policies, an ongoing vigorous programme of privatization.

- A law of Free Trade Zone has been issued to encourage foreign investment and Free Trade Zone has been established in Salalah, and AL mazunah.
- Tax law has been amended so the corporate income tax is the same for all the companies register in Oman.

- Offering many incentives to attract foreign investment in gas – base projects and tourism projects. In addition to the high level services in ports, road and telecommunication, industrial estates with best facilities, developing financial and banking services, capital market and insurance with a high level of transparency and quality.

- Oman has decided to further liberalize its foreign investment and taxation regime. The general permissible limit of foreign equity holding to join ventures has been raised to 70% (100% in special cases).

- A number of bilateral, regional and multilateral initiatives have been taken by Oman for protection and promotion of foreign investments. The formation of the Gulf Custom Union in 2003, Greater Arab Free Trade Area in 2005, Oman have been a founder member in both, completion of negotiation with U.S. for a free trade area which is expected to come in force by the end of this year 2006, prospects of a very early conclusion of F.T.A. negotiations of Oman – GCC with E.U. – all this has also improved the investment climate.

What efforts are to develop and upgrade Omani Human Resource in order to cope with technological progress and attain international competitiveness?

Our development plans for the Omani Human Resource involve sufficient resource allocations for providing Omanis with adequate education, specialization, and technical skills, which will help the nation keep pace with technological progress and international competitiveness.

Oman had a number of objectives to develop its Human Resources:
- increasing the percentage of intake of General Certificate output in higher education institutions as well as upgrading and spreading basic education. (Goal is to enable Omani youth to fill new employment opportunities and substitute for the expatriates, to 'increase the productivity of Oman's youth and prepare them to participate in establishing the pillars of knowledge economy and improve the quality of there lives').

- encouraging the expansion of private education.
- Developing programs for the abolishment of illiteracy.
- Expand special education facilities.
- Developing education through:

1- Abolishing the double – shift system in schools.
2- Developing educational research.
3- Developing the assessment and evaluation system.
4- Expanding the use of technology in schools.
5- Developing the curriculum.

Since the mid – 1990s, Oman has made steady progress in developing its citizen's human resources by instituting vocational training initiatives, post – secondary education reforms, and changes to the structure and curriculum of the k-12 education system.

What measures are on for promoting economic diversification?

The Seventh Five-Year Plan aims at boosting economic diversification through developing tourism, fisheries and industrial sectors, encouraging exports and increasing productivity of various sectors, notably oil and gas sectors, promoting financial institutions, redirecting revenues of privatization to finance productive projects, developing small and medium enterprises and enhancing water resources. The target of the plan is to achieve a growth of 7.5 per cent of non-oil activities and 11.6 per cent of non-oil Omani commodity exports during the plan period.

As a continuation to the various diversification programs, the Government's ongoing Seventh Five-Year Plan is to expand the country's two airports – Seeb and Salalah, as modern airports in the region. Developing Salalah airport will serve the growing tourism activities in the region as well as the government plan to develop a Free Trade Zone in Salalah.
Moreover, new projects come into being, whether on gas-based industries, tourism or on other production and services sector. The Government announced early this year that it is going to set up three new airports, one each at Sohar, Duqum and Ras AL Hadd.

Sohar Oil Refinery already started production in the mid of 2006, Sohar Polypropylene Project and Methanol project are expected to start commercial production by last quarter of this year.

There are other projects to be completed during the recent plan period including: Sohar Aluminum, Sohar International Urea and Chemical Industries, Ethylene Dichloride project ,Sohar Aromatic project , Shadeed Iron and Steel project, Iran's National Petrochemical Company and Oman Oil Company.
On the tourism sector projects under construction are Yitti Beach, the Wave project and the Blue City project which are planed to be due for completion during the plan period.

Are you in favour of the emergence of small – scale industries in a big way in Oman. Any efforts initiated towards this end?

One major pillar of recent labour market initiatives is the development of local market so that jobs can be created all over the country, not just in the capital of Muscat. Currently, the major projects are concentrated in the cities, increasing employment and self – employment in other places, and providing fiscal incentives for people to start their own businesses. For example, Oman offers many incentives: training, soft loans and grants for young people to start businesses through the following programs and entities: 

- Oman Development Bank (finance).
- SANAD Program (finance, training, consulting).
- Intilaqah (training).
- Oman Youth Fund (joint venture).

In addition, the Seventh Five – Year Plan gave more emphasis to the development of small and medium size enterprises

What plans do you have regarding boosting information technology in Oman?

The Seventh Five Year Plan gives special emphasis to the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. One of the main aims is to move to a knowledge-based economy, and leverage (ICT) as the means of providing collaborative services to government, business society and Omani people. A national strategy for the advancement of information and communication technology has been worked out, mainly to introduce e-government, e-commerce, and a digital society. Policies have been outlined to develop (ICT) industry. An information technology complex (Knowledge Oasis Muscat) had been established, consisting of section for information technology, incubator services, a shopping center of technology software and hardware, ICT colleges, and other relevant services. To activate and give more importance to scientific research, a Royal Decree has been issued on June 2005 to cover setting up a Scientific Research Council to draft a strategy and a full- fledged national plan to promote scientific research and development. So, all these efforts tend to transform the Omani economy to a knowledge-based economy, integrated in the global economy.

Also, a Royal Degree has been issued on June 2006 for the setting up of the Information Technology Authority (ITA). It is affiliated to the Ministry of National Economy. Some of the key initiatives of ITA for a digital Oman are as follows:

- Setting up a unified e-Government architecture including IT infrastructure, applications and shareable databases of services and public information.
- Creating an IT governance framework, standards and guidelines for national information and communication technologies (ICT) sector infrastructure, and a security framework. 
- Enabling customer- centric e-Government services for both individuals and businesses and streamlining them within the common IT infrastructure.
- Developing plans and policies for training and development of human resources in IT while enhancing existing competencies.
- Deploying ICT education and training programs suitable for various segments of the society based on systematic studies and comprehensive planning.

Moreover, there is a project undertaken by ITA which is (IT Literacy for civil service employees). It aims to evaluate international standard certification programs for IT literacy building within the government sector.