One of the positive outcomes of the decline in oil prices over 2015 and 2016 has been a surge in activity in the GCC’s debt market. With oil revenues shrinking, governments around the Arabian Gulf have sought alternative sources of funding for their spending programmes, and the issuance of sovereign bonds has proved a useful solution for many...
Recent decades have seen a downward trend in corporate taxation, with headline corporate tax rates falling by 20 percentage points since the early 1980s. The average for advanced economies dipped to 22% in 2015, and investment incentives have further reduced effective rates for transnational corporations. After the 2007-08 global financial...
Like other GCC states, Oman’s economy is largely driven by oil and gas activity. However, with fewer and more complex hydrocarbons reserves than its neighbours, it is under greater pressure to diversify its economic base. The scale of this challenge was highlighted by recent falling oil prices, which resulted in lower revenues from the...
As the first step in a series of planned privatisations, 2019 should see the partial sale of two government-owned electricity companies: Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) and the Muscat Electricity Distribution Company (MEDC). The motivations for the sell-off strategy are many, ranging from efforts to improve operational efficiency...
In July 2018 the opening of Oman’s largest seawater desalination plant on the coast west of Seeb marked a major step forward for the water utility sector. Completed in less than 30 months at a cost of $300m, the Barka IV independent water project (IWP) has a capacity of 281,000 cu metres per day. The Barka Desalination Company is a consortium...
With the utilities sector continuing its long-term shift towards privatisation, these are changing times for power, water and waste in the sultanate. The year ahead will see further private sector participation in the country’s electricity transmission and distribution networks, while a number of new desalination projects will also get under...
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