Economy

Decades of growth in trade and foreign investment have seen economies around the world become more interconnected than ever before. The production of goods and, increasingly, the provision of services have become fractured across borders as corporations create and integrate into regional and global value chains. These trends have been...

The question of how to shift the economy to be more focused on the private sector is a central government concern. In early 2018 the Ministry of Finance published its annual statement on Oman’s general budget for 2018, setting out the strategic objectives that public spending is driving towards. Among the many budgetary goals referred to in...

The issue of Omanisation – which refers to the initiative to increase the percentage of nationals in Oman’s workforce – has a considerable pedigree. The concept was first introduced in 1988 as a means to reduce the nation’s reliance on expatriates in key areas of economic activity, such as the oil and gas sector. Over time, most private sector...

A Malaysian influence has been detectable in the GCC economic arena for many years, particularly in the Islamic finance industry, which has benefitted from the models trialled first by the Malaysian financial regulator. Kuala Lumpur has emerged as a generator of sharia-compliant standards to complement the GCC’s own Accounting and Auditing...

Located in the south-eastern quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman is the only member of the GCC situated outside of the Gulf. Leveraging its strategic location, Oman has invested in infrastructure with the goal of becoming a global logistics centre. While the country is less hydrocarbons-rich than its GCC neighbours, diversification efforts...