MUSCAT: The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at current prices increased by 5.4 per cent in 2016 to reach to RO 29 billion, compared with RO 27.4 billion of the end of 2015, according to the annual report of the Omani economy (first issue, December 2017) released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
According to the report, the value added oil activities declined by 20.7 per cent to reach to RO 7 billion in 2016 from RO 8.8 billion in 2015, due to the decrease in the value added crude oil by 24.4 per cent during this period.
The decline in the value added crude oil in 2016 is due to the decrease in the average price of crude oil of the Sultanate by 29 per cent compared with the previous year to reach to $40.1 per barrel.
The average daily production of oil increased from 981.1 thousand barrels in 2015 to about 1 million barrels in 2016.
However, it returned to its decline in 2017 because of the pledge by the Sultanate to reduce its production of oil by 45,000 barrels per day with effect from January 1, 2017. The benefit of the natural gas increased by 2.6 per cent by the end of 2016 compared with the previous year.
The value added of non-oil activities increased by 2.6 per cent to reach to RO 19.7 billion in 2016, compared with RO 19.2 billion in 2015.
This is due to the increase in the value added of agriculture and fish by 9.3 per cent and service activities by 4.7 per cent, whereas the industrial activities registered a decline of 2.9 per cent during that period.
In the cash sector, domestic liquidity (M2) saw a slowdown in growth in 2016 rising by only 1.8 per cent, compared with the growth rate of 10 per cent and 16.3 per cent in 2015 and 2014, respectively. — ONA
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