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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...

With a well-capitalised banking system and minimal exposure to European debt, the Omani economy is progressing relatively unscathed by the economic gloom prevailing elsewhere. Thanks to a surplus in the first half of 2012, the sultanate has managed to roll out significant counter-cyclical spending measures while keeping its budget in order....

Generating over 37% of GDP and contributing about RM263bn ($84.8bn) to GNI, the Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley (GKL/KV) region is the prosperous core and the administrative axis of Malaysia’s economic growth. In 2011, the number of people living in the region – which falls under 10 local authorities – hovered at about 6m, or around 20% of the...

Over the past 15 years, the private sector has been widely credited as increasing access and choice for education options in Malaysia. However, the picture is more complicated. Everything from government incentives to changes in the public sector, the opening of new niches, and the introduction of private players in the primary, secondary and...