Oman’s advantages overweigh challenges

Despite smooth and efficient bureaucracy and a globally competitive taxation system, Oman performs poorly in terms of investment opportunities, largely owing to the lack of diversity in its economic offerings.

With a heavy reliance on hydrocarbon exports, the Sultanate is striving, like most in the region, to develop alternative strings to its economic bow, with limited success to date. This is further compounded by limited accessibility to foreign investors to the lucrative upstream oil sector. Nevertheless, Oman offers reasonable trade openness with a diverse spread of trading partners mitigating risks of changes in demand.

With a complete lack of rail capability and low road density across the country’s relatively sparse geography, Oman’s major airports and seaports are insufficient to make the Sultanate an outperformer for this indicator. Nonetheless, Oman boasts a stronger performance on its utilities network and trade process, offering some of the cheapest utilities and fuel rates in the world.

“Oman has also made significant efforts in reducing red tape for importers and exporters, resulting in lower costs of trading. Over the coming years, we will see room for improvement as the government continues to invest in the infrastructure network, which will reduce risks of supply chain disruptions,” the report said.

CRIME AND SECURITY: Despite increasing turbulence in its neighbourhood, Oman benefits from an extremely strong and secure operating environment, mitigating the costs of crime and insecurity to businesses, investors, and employers. With well-trained and equipped police force, counter-terrorism capability, and military, Oman is relatively well-secured from crime and armed threat. Similarly, increasing capabilities in the cybersecurity and financial security fields are decreasing Oman’s susceptibility to sophisticated crimes.

INTERNET: The report predicts migration to 3G/4G mobile subscriptions rise from 3.73 million to 5.07 million by 2020 and fibre connections will facilitate uptake of high-value converged services. Subscriptions will rise to 2.90 million in 2020.

RETAIL: Household retail spending is expected to increase from $16,961 per household in 2016 to $21,208 in 2020. Regional retail players will continue to expand to Oman as their domestic markets, with UAE and Qatar becoming increasingly saturated. a