At the base of the Arabian Peninsula, occupying a landmass slightly larger than Italy, Oman is the largest country in the GCC after Saudi Arabia. In recent years, the non-OPEC oil exporter’s economy has been undergoing a steady transformation, reorienting from oil toward a more diverse set of service and industry-based economic activities. So...
With the Omani appetite for credit showing some substantial increases in 2011 and early 2012, the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) introduced some important measures to ensure this loan growth stayed within sustainable limits. The results have been good thus far, even if they have obliged banks to adjust and required banking equities to stabilise. The...
Speaking at the annual session of the Council of Oman in 2012, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said declared that when it came to foreign affairs, the sultanate maintained a consistent policy based on “peace, harmony and close cooperation with all nations”. Indeed, since Sultan Qaboos assumed the reins of power in 1970, Oman has followed a...
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up around 16% of the sultanate’s GDP – no small feat for companies with fewer than 100 employees. SMEs in Oman, as defined by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), are businesses with no more than 99 workers and annual sales of up to OR1.5m ($3.8m). Depending on size and sales numbers,...
Backed up by strong macroeconomic fundamentals and the sultanate’s reputation for stability and sound financial management, Oman’s banking sector is now starting a period of substantial change. In 2012-13, Islamic banks will enter the field for the first time, bringing heightened competition for deposits and loans, while also bringing wider...
With its lengthy coastline running along the edge of a sometimes mountainous and often desert interior, Oman is a country of many different aspects. It is both an ancient maritime power and a key desert sultanate, a place both open to the modern world and that preserves a strong sense of tradition and culture. Indeed, while many countries are...
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