The Middle East

Some of the most dramatic economic growth outside of Oman’s capital can be found in the port town of Duqm. Located approximately 550 km to the south of Muscat in the Al Wusta region, Duqm was a small fishing community in the 1950s when a team arrived to begin oil exploration in the area. Today economic activity in the town focuses on the...

Summers in Dhofar are unique for the Gulf region. In mid-summer, the south-east monsoon, known as the khareef, flows in from the east on seasonal winds coming off of the Indian Ocean. A moist white haze settles across the city of Salalah and the surrounding area, tempering...

A significant portion of economic activity in Oman is concentrated in the country’s capital and nearby surrounding areas. A number of other regions in the sultanate, however, remain key drivers of economic growth and are playing an increasingly important role as the national economy matures and diversifies. Most notably, these areas include...

The rapidly rising level of research activity in the Omani education sector brings a number of challenges, one of the most salient being how best to monitor the increasing array of research programmes being introduced by the sultanate’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). An oversight capability of this nature is key to developing a cogent...

In the mature telecommunications markets of North America and Europe, internet services generally grew out of existing telephone networks. During the 1990s, early adopters around the world can still recall the odd noises of their 56-K dial-up modems. As technologies developed, operators used copper phone, cable television and other fixed...