Oman has entered into 28 investment agreements in various sectors with over RO304 million or about $790 million, for projects in the country’s industrial cities and special economic zones as well as free zones. The deals cover in excess of two million square meters of space for logistics, manufacturing, food processing, and recycling, as well as commercial use.
It is worth noting that of the announced 28 investment agreements, RO147.6 million goes to the industrial cities that are run by the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates – Madayn. This involves a proposed RO112 million iron and steel products plant by Atlas Steel at Sohar Industrial City that will spread across nearly 440,000 square meters.
Fujian Mancheng Industries and Investment is to invest RO20 million to set up a ceramics facility in Sohar on a plot of over 241,000 square meters. Other projects in Madayn’s industrial cities consist of a RO7 million fertilizer plant in Raysut, paper product production, structural metal product manufacturing, and oilfield equipment manufacturing and upkeep facilities.
The Sohar Free Zone is represented by five agreements valued at RO58.5 million. These happen to include an RO38 million vehicle assembly complex with a built-up area of 317,000 square meters and also an RO15 million transformer manufacturing plant by Voltamp High Voltage Transformers.
Apparently, Lalan Middle East is also planning to invest RO1.5 million in expansion when it comes to medical equipment manufacturing plants.
There are 6 agreements worth RO55.08mn have been signed for projects in the Duqm Special Economic Zone. They include a RO40 million shrimp-feed manufacturing facility by Al Jazer Feed, projects pertaining to livestock quarantine, fish and seafood processing, and used-oil recycling, as well as property development.
Notably, all these three agreements represent RO32.95 million at the Salalah Free Zone. They consist of a steel structures plant at RO19.25 million, RO7.7 million when it comes to gypsum products, and RO6 million as far as a dairy processing project is concerned.
Over RO10.4m has been allocated to projects at Khazaen Economic City involving manufacturing and logistics facilities. The signing event also commemorated the establishment of Khazaen’s free zone with its initial two investment agreements.
The agreements were made public by the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones – OPAZ of Oman. The authority said the projects were a component of its attempts to draw in capital and foster industrial and commercial operations within the country.