There is still a large gap between us and a number of industrialized countries in the world in the field of manufacturing. The Sultanate of Oman ranked 56th globally in the industrial sector, according to the data of the competitive industrial report for the year 2023 issued recently by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
Although we are making a rapid leap in developing this vital sector in which Oman has made good leaps over the past seven years, rising from 72nd place in 2016 to 56th place in 2023, we need to provide more facilities, show flexibility, and provide services to the industrial sector in order to empower Omani industrialists to have the desire to continue to achieve more progress and to continue pumping new investments into other factories.
Industrialists in Oman, and despite the passage of these many years of working in this sector, they still hope that the concerned authorities will deal with them and their industrial conditions they face with ease, and not by issuing violations and sending sudden inspection teams to factories to confirm and find out whether the factory is complying with all necessary transactions.
No factory can be established except with an industrial permit and in accordance with the requirements and standards agreed upon by the concerned authorities. However, the matter sometimes requires showing some flexibility, especially in the absence of foreign technicians and specialized workers, so that others can follow up on these works until they are properly settled.
What I would like to say here is that a group of industrialists are complaining about the campaigns carried out by the Ministry of Labour while workers are performing their work in offices and manufacturing places. Sometimes the inspector issues a violation to the factory or its owner for a simple breach, which leads to an increase in the factory’s costs, and to the reluctance of some of those working people to continue in that factory.
The lack of flexibility in such sectors will exacerbate problems for industrialists, especially if they need some manual specializations that are sometimes not available in the local market. These factories primarily provide job opportunities for Omanis in various specializations. The salaries that factories pay to local workers are much higher than what similar factories outside Oman pay to expatriate workers because they are not obligated to employ a large number of national workers, which does not give small and medium factories and their products a great opportunity to compete in many global markets.
Therefore, any closure of the local factory will exacerbate the problem of laid-off local workers in the country, and this is what the authorities must take into account and avoid, while qualifying and training local workers to supply factories with them.
The improvement witnessed by the industrial sector in recent years was achieved as a result of the services provided by the concerned authorities, along with the exemptions and other facilities provided by the government to this sector. The current stage requires more flexibility in manufacturing. This sector is not like other economic sectors, because it needs cadres and competencies in various technical specializations that are sometimes not available in the local market, but rather are brought from abroad.
While continuing to understand the issues related to the industry and industrialists, this will lead to diversifying industrial activities and increasing the added value of the sector.
haiderdawood@hotmail.com
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