40% of construction work completed at Duqm Material Market

Muscat: The Special Economic Zone at Duqm (Sezad) hosts the first-of-its-kind material market with workshops, showrooms for retail and wholesale businesses and warehouse facilities in the Sultanate of Oman.

Being one of the first projects in the Sino-Omani Industrial Park in Sezad, the project is jointly developed as a strategic partnership between Oman Wanfang, developer and operator of the China-Oman Industrial Park in Duqm, Al Thabat Holding Company, an investment company active in infrastructure activities, and Oman Company for the Development of Special Economic Zone at Duqm (Tatweer).

The first phase of the project has recorded 40 per cent completion until now.

In an interview with Duqm Economist Magazine, Liu Minghua, CEO of Duqm Material Market Company, touched on this distinguished project.
He affirmed, upon its completion, the project will attract various companies around the world to Duqm and place it a hub for marketing and selling their products.
Commenting on the objectives behind developing this project, the CEO of Duqm Material Market Company explained, “This project is intended to bring a new concept of malls different than other Chinese malls in the Sultanate This project aims to bring Chinese commodities and manufacturing capacity to the Sultanate of Oman. Its focus will be mainly on wholesale demands for local and international markets in terms of exporting products.”

This remarkable project is well-received by many companies from China, which expressed their interest to come onboard. The project’s first phase is spreading over 30,000 square metres out of the total 80,000 square metres of area allocated for Duqm Material Market.

However, the other two phases of the project will be developed in the far future as planning these phases depends on the function of phase one and the potential demands from the market.

Touching on the significant value of the project, the CEO remarked that the project is targeting local and regional markets as well as North-East African countries. As a building material market, steel is the major range of products that will be traded.

Also, there is a big demand from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia on textiles. However, other light chemical products receive increasing demand from Somalia mainly.