The unemployment queue can be reduced if graduates get the opportunities to set their own businesses.
However, at the moment aspiring entrepreneurs find out they have to go through a complicated red tape to establish a trade. Most of them give up the dreams of their lifetime and look for jobs.
The exhausting regulations ask SME potential owners suffer countless of setbacks as they are asked to fill up endless paperwork.
The concept of one-stop shop only applies to foreign investors who are offered a fast track of establishing a business in Oman. But local youngsters, though the financial aid is readily available, find that to put their signature on an official paper to get a business going is a very frustrating task, if not frightening.
For Oman’s economy to flourish there has to be a good attempt to let young people in. Old walls of protection that favour the established trading companies must be dismantled.
Competition from new entrepreneurship will boost the economy and expand new trading horizons.
New entrepreneurs are the future and they offer the exciting opportunity to boost business growth at a time when finding jobs for the young is a top priority.
It is time to unite different government agencies to smooth out financing, licensing and labour requirements. In theory, everything is in place to open a venture but it is the myriad of practicality which is putting off new business people from making their mark.
Problem also need to be overcome for businesses that have made through the start-up stages. Currently, their rate of survival is small.
According to statistics, a new small to medium venture stands only a 30 per cent of a long-term survival. If we take the example of the European Union (EU), small businesses that employ up to 50 workers are the largest employers but their success needs a solid support from the government.
In the current situation, small businesses can play an important role in self-employment and job creation than multi-million companies that depend on automation to do the jobs rather than manpower.
There are enough multi-million companies which have been set up in Oman in the last 20 years. Many of them are in Suhar, the flagship of Oman’s big time industries.
It is evidence enough that small businesses creation is the only solution for thousands of young people who looks for jobs every year. The irony is that the young people themselves can set up these ventures and employ their peers provided the environment is right for them.
Changes are needed in small business creation otherwise new trade ideas will never take off and the existing ones will continue to struggle. We have enough graduates with new ideas but they need the chance to flourish. We need to give them the push in the right direction.
The structural barrier that creates hurdles for potential business people must be removed and replaced by friendly and supportive methods.
The government must also make it compulsory that manufacturers and large corporate companies must offer their support by outsourcing some of their requirements to small ventures to keep them afloat.
For example, a mineral water company had recently opted to give a contract for plastics bottles to a foreign-based firm instead of a local one. Such contracts of support to local companies would create hundreds of jobs and keep the economy going.
So it is not just old fashioned red tape that needs to go but the old bureaucrats who must make way for young blood if we want inspiring entrepreneurs to soar high.
SALEH AL SHAIBANY
saleh_shaibani@yahoo.com
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