MUSCAT: Coinciding with the 51st National Day celebrations, Oman Investment Authority (OIA) has announced the opening of 13 national projects through its subsidiary companies in energy, logistics, food security, infrastructure, mining, healthcare and tourism sectors at a value of RO 3.5 billion.
Nasser bin Suleiman al Harthi, Acting Vice-president for operations, OIA, said that these 13 projects embody the strategy of the OIA and its objectives that are in line with the Oman Vision 2040 and enhance the economic diversification and investment attraction strategies. Besides, the projects boost the public-private partnership which will result in the generation of job opportunities for Omanis and achieve fiscal sustainability. He noted that the projects span several sectors, and are distributed in a number of governorates, and constitute an important indicator of the return of the economy to recovery path in the wake of the economic slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
global demands
In the manufacturing and energy sectors, the Liwa Plastics Industries Complex (LPIC) was inaugurated at Sohar Port. The project utilises the latest industrial technologies and consists of an LNG extraction plant, a steam cracking unit and polymer plants enabling it to respond to the increasing global demands. The Salalah Liquefied Petroleum Gas Project aims to achieve added value from Omani gas by converting it into liquefied petroleum gas products. The project team has so far succeeded in producing and exporting three commercial shipments of propane, butane and condensates while continuing to successfully load LPG tankers to meet the local demand.
The petroleum coke project at Sohar Free Zone has a production capacity of 500,000 tonnes per annum which can be increased in later stages.
Among the projects is the Ibri Solar Power Plant project which is one of the pillars of Oman Vision 2040 and aims to encourage the use of renewable energy to meet the increasing demand for electricity in the Sultanate of Oman.
Al Murooj Dairy, the first-of-its-kind in the Sultanate of Oman and the Gulf region, targets camel and cow breeders in the governorates of Dhofar and Al Wusta. The project is based on a set of social and economic dimensions as it increases the income of camel breeders by directly purchasing their milk products and contributes to generating job opportunities as well as supporting small and medium enterprises working in this field.
The Al Bashayer Integrated Meat Project focuses on raising livestock and the fattening and slaughtering of livestock in a sophisticated slaughterhouse. The project involves a veterinary quarry, a natural fodder farm, a slaughterhouse, and three centres for meat processing, packaging, and sale.
The shrimp farming project in Jaalan Bani Bu Hassan is the first commercial project for shrimp farming with a target production capacity of 4,500 tonnes per year when fully operational.
Karwa Motors, the Sultanate’s first bus assembly plant, is a partnership between the Sultanate of Oman and the State of Qatar, is working on the nationalisation of the latest technologies for the manufacture and assembly of buses. In the first phase, the company will manufacture three types of buses: upgraded school buses, intercity buses, and city transport buses with GCC standard specifications. The project will help build technical knowledge in the automotive sector and contribute to the development of primary industries that feed the automotive industry in the Sultanate of Oman.
Oman International Hospital, a partnership project with the private sector, provides distinctive healthcare services to citizens and residents of the Sultanate of Oman.
It focuses on providing quality healthcare services for women and children and contains specialised centres for cardiology, ophthalmology and orthopaedic treatment.
