Two shores, one sea: The case for Oman and Somalia

Long before airline timetables, the monsoon did the logistics. For centuries its winds carried dhows between Oman’s coast and the Horn of Africa, with frankincense and trade goods in the hold and merchants who knew both shores. On September 3 that old route gained a modern counterpart, when SalamAir flew non-stop from Muscat to Mogadishu for the first time, twice a week, with one-way fares from RO 79.99. A flight is a small thing. What the two economies build along its path need not be.
The timing matters on both sides. Oman has just launched its Eleventh Five-Year Development Plan (2026–2030), the second plan under Oman Vision 2040, which targets average annual growth of 7 per cent in transport and logistics, 5.9 per cent in manufacturing and 5 per cent in fisheries.
Somalia, with 19.7 million people, Africa’s longest coastline and a seat in an East African Community market of more than 300 million, is rebuilding its economy. The World Bank projects growth of 2.8 per cent this year, constrained by aid reductions, climate variability and limited productive capacity. Geography has moved up the agenda too.
This year’s disruption to Gulf shipping showed the worth of ports on the open Arabian Sea: Salalah, more than 1,000 km from the Strait of Hormuz, recorded a roughly 20 per cent per cent increase in first-half revenue, amid changes in shipping routes. Oman offers Somalia a Gulf gateway on the open sea; Somalia offers Oman a door into East Africa.
Yet trade between the two remains narrow. According to UN Comtrade, Oman sold Somalia $304 million of goods in 2024, led by cement, flour, dairy products and steel, and bought $217 million in return. About 97 per cent of Oman’s imports from Somalia consisted of live animals.
Somalia’s central bank reports livestock exports of more than 5.9 million head in 2025, worth about $923 million, with Oman among its key markets. It is a healthy trade, but a raw one. Animals travel one way and staples the other, while most of the value that could be added in between is skipped. In my view, that gap, rather than headline volume, is how the partnership should now be measured.
Food security is the natural place to start. Oman produces only 45 per cent of the red meat it eats, according to its agriculture ministry, and buyers across the Middle East, led by the Gulf, imported about $2.4 billion of live sheep and goats in 2024. Australia, a major supplier, is scheduled to end live sheep exports by sea in 2028. Shipping live animals means paying freight on weight that is later discarded, so the margin lies in quarantine, finishing, slaughter, chilling, certification and packing.
Capacity is coming: the $150 million venture between Brazil’s JBS and the Oman Investment Authority’s food arm includes a processing unit at Thumrait in Dhofar. Fisheries tell a similar story. Oman is 146 per cent self-sufficient in fish and has landing-site and processing know-how to share, yet it bought only $3 million of Somali fish in 2024. When Somalia’s foreign minister visited Muscat in April, cold chains, processing and joint fisheries investment were on the agenda.
The return leg matters as much. Somalia imported $7.3 billion of goods in 2025, mostly from China, India and the UAE. Omani cement, flour and steel already have a foothold, and manufacturers in Sohar, Duqm and Salalah can plan capacity around Somali construction and food demand, with Salalah as the gateway. Oman can also be the investment platform. NCSI data show its foreign direct investment stock reached RO 32.2 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up 8.7 per cent, and the IMF projects Omani growth of about 3.7 per cent this year. Gulf, Asian and Somali capital can structure ventures for the Horn from Muscat, with Omani partners alongside.
This is where small firms come in. The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority counts roughly 267,500 SMEs in Oman, contributing about 21.8 per cent of GDP. Few will build an abattoir, but many could run veterinary laboratories, fodder supply, refrigerated trucking, freight forwarding, packaging or leather finishing, or provide the inspection and trade services that larger players depend on. Somali partners bring knowledge of herds, ports and buyers, and both sides share Arabic as a language of business. Twice-weekly flights make the site visit, and the handshake, far easier.
None of this will happen on goodwill alone. Cold chains need power, and the World Bank finds that while 71 per cent of Somali households have electricity, only 21 per cent receive more than eight hours a day, so solar-powered cold storage must be part of the design. Payments matter just as much.
IMF staff link new correspondent banking relationships to a stronger financial-integrity framework, and until a dependable bank-to-bank channel exists, trade finance will stay informal and small. Progress will show in three places: a falling share of live animals in Oman’s imports from Somalia, letters of credit moving between Omani and Somali banks, and more cargo capacity on the new air and sea links.
The monsoon taught these two coasts long ago that the sea connects more than it divides. The new flight carries people, which is the right place to begin, because trade follows trust. If the coming decade sees containers of chilled meat, fish and building materials crossing alongside today’s livestock carriers, Oman will have done more than deepen an old friendship. It will have shown, on the far shore of the Arabian Sea, what a Vision 2040 logistics, manufacturing and investment hub looks like in practice.