Among the issues recently reviewed by the Council of Ministers is the issue of the national product and the need to pay attention at all administrative, technical, and diplomatic levels as well. Industry is considered one of the important economic sectors in the state's economic diversification policy, which everyone is working to increase its presence in the various Omani governorates. It is considered one of the foundations through which more job opportunities can be provided for citizens in the future, localised, and integrated among them, in addition to developing entrepreneurs’ projects in this sector. This will reduce the foreign import bill, and dependency on other countries, and thus lead to improving and increasing the country’s trade balance surpluses.
What we want to raise in this regard relates to some of the challenges, problems and obstacles facing industrialists in marketing and selling their products to government private institutions and companies. In this context, some Omani industrialists believe that despite the directives of the relevant agencies to government institutions and the private sector to embrace the national product, the problem lies in the application and implementation process. One of the Omani industrialists indicated in his complaint to us in a private message requesting that its contents be communicated to state officials, in which he said a state-owned company recently awarded a tender to purchase paper tissues and paper cups of all kinds from some Gulf companies and factories, ignoring the offers submitted to similar Omani companies. By purchasing these products, it did not consider the right of preference that should be given to Omani industrial companies at a rate of 10%, as is the practice in procurements.
Industrialists in Oman believe that the state-owned company in question did not bother to contact the Omani bidders to negotiate the prices and explore whether they could match the quotes offered by the external bidders.
An industrialist in Oman believes that employment salaries in this sector are large because of the implementation of the “Omanization” policy, contrary to what is followed in neighboring countries, which are given the freedom to choose and employ cheap workers. This requires that government institutions and private ones in Oman submit their offers and purchase their products from local factories in the first place. Rebuffing Omani products, especially by a state-owned company, will not contribute to achieving the goals of the vision to which we aspire. It is also a shame for customers of that company to patronize product from another country when similar national products are available locally at competitive prices and with superior quality as well.
Correcting this path is important to improve the industrial conditions in the country. Here we refer to the directives of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik to the concerned authorities regarding the necessity of preparing a national policy for local content with the aim of reducing imports and increasing exports and adopting the “National Policy for Local Content (2024-2030)” which aims to create a national system responsible for organizing and follow up on local content in all sectors, with the need to motivate all consumers to choose Omani products.
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