A new gateway: What the CEPA means for Oman

This month, with little fanfare, Oman opened a new door onto the world's largest emerging economy. On June 1, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between Oman and India came into force — the first bilateral trade pact the Sultanate of Oman has signed since its accord with the United States in 2006.
Concluded in Muscat last December before His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it deserves more attention than it has received, for it speaks directly to the future the Sultanate of Oman is trying to build.
Much commentary has dwelt on what India gains — and the figures are real, with nearly 99 per cent of Indian goods now entering Oman duty-free. Yet the agreement is reciprocal, and the openings for Oman are no less significant. India has agreed to scrap the bulk of its tariffs, with immediate elimination on close to 98 per cent of tariff lines. The products that benefit most are the backbone of Omani industry: methanol, fertilisers, liquefied natural gas, crude oil and other industrial raw materials. A predictable, tariff-light route into India gives our producers fresh incentive to scale up and add value at home.
Equally important is investment. Indian firms may now hold full ownership in a wide range of Omani service sectors — some 127 sub-sectors in all. That promises inward capital, expertise and enterprise of precisely the kind Vision 2040 envisions: new jobs, knowledge transfer and a deeper services economy.
Then there is geography, Oman's quiet advantage. Increasingly the Sultanate is seen as India's dependable gateway to West Asia and East Africa, a role made more valuable by tensions around the Strait of Hormuz.
As Indian exporters use our ports and free zones as a springboard to wider markets, Oman strengthens its standing as a regional logistics hub — a corridor, not merely a destination.
None of this is abstract. Bilateral trade has already climbed past $11 billion, and the bond beneath it is centuries old: nearly 700,000 Indians live here, including merchant families settled for generations.
The gateway, then, is open. The harder work now falls to us — equipping exporters, free-zone operators and entrepreneurs to seize what the agreement offers. The opportunity is genuine. The question, as ever, is how widely Oman chooses to walk through it.