Sultan Qaboos presides over military parade on National Day celebrations

Omani Sultan pardons number of prisoners

Oman adopts free-market economy, encourages foreign investment

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, presided over the military parade held at the military parade ground at Muaskar Al Murtafa’ah to mark the Sultanate’s 38th National Day celebrations.

Units representing corps of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), the Royal Guard of Oman (RGO) and Royal Oman Police (ROP) took part in the military parade.

Upon his arrival at the Military Parade Ground, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said was received by General Ali bin Majid Al Ma’amari, minister of the Royal Office; Sayyid Badr bin Saud Al Hareb, minister responsible for defense affairs; Lieutenant-General Ahmed bin Harith Al Nabhani, chief of staff of the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), and Major-General Said bin Nasser Al Salmi, commander of the Royal Army of Oman (RAO).

The columns of the parade performed the military salute and the joint military musical bands played the Royal Anthem while the artillery fired a 21-gun salute for His Majesty.

The parade commenced with the joint military musical band, representing corps of SAF, RGO, ROP, music of the equestrian and Royal Cavalry, passing before the Royal box in slow motion and regular march to the tunes.

The columns of the Protocol Guard also performed its parade in regular military columns and chanted the military and allegiance song, proclaiming thrice ‘Long Live His Majesty the Sultan’.

The Musical Band played the Royal Anthem and the columns of the Protocol Guard performed the military salute to His Majesty the Sultan, signaling the conclusion of the parade.

The ceremony was attended by their highnesses, chairmen of the State Council and Majlis Al Shura, ministers, advisers, commanders of SAF and ROP, senior military and civil officers.

It was also attended by members of the State Council and Majlis Al Shura, undersecretaries, heads of diplomatic missions, military attaches, sheikhs and dignitaries.

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has pardoned a number of Omani and expatriate prisoners, who have been earlier convicted in different cases.

The royal pardon by His Majesty, the supreme commander, coincides with the country’s 38th National Day celebrations.

The State Council bureau yesterday held its first meeting of the second annual sitting of the fourth term under the chairmanship of Dr Yahya bin Mahfoudh Al Mantheri, chairman of the State Council. The meeting approved minutes of the previous meeting and reviewed the list of executive procedures taken on decisions at the previous meeting and the committees’ activities during the bureau’s previous and present meeting.

The meeting also reviewed contents of the royal speech of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said before the Council of Oman on November 11. The meeting also viewed a number of messages sent by the chairman of the State Council to some heads of parliamentary councils among other topics, which the bureau took appropriate decisions in their regard.

Majlis A’Shura bureau held its 1st regular meeting of the second annual sitting for 2008/2009 under the chairmanship of HE Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al Isa’ee, Chairman of Majlis A’Shura.

The meeting approved minutes of previous meeting and reviewed follow-up implementation of the bureau’s decisions.

The Majlis A’Shura bureau also reviewed contents of the Royal Speech by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said before the Council of Oman (Majlis Oman). It focused on the Royal Speech’s directives to activate the role of the State’s Administrative Apparatus and care about human resources as a basic pillar in national work.

The bureau also reviewed the food security since it presents one of the vital themes focused on by His Majesty in his Royal Speech in the light of the economic crisis witnessed by the world.

The meeting also discussed accountability, the necessity to activate laws that highlight the importance of faithfulness, work responsibility away from personal interests, which the Royal Speech touched on. It also discussed developing governmental performance and technology.

The office took some procedures and laid down work mechanisms to reflect contents of the Royal Speech of His Majesty the Sultan.

The Majlis office also looked into a number of replies sent by a number of government ministries and departments. The meeting discussed comments of the Services and Local Communities Development Committee on the annual report of the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources.

Majlis A’Shura’s expanded economic committee held its second regular meeting for the second session of Majlis A’Shura sixth term under the chairmanship of HE Dr Fouad Bin Ja’afar Sajwani, Chairman of the committee.

During the meeting, the committee continued its study of the draft budget of the state for the fiscal 2009, which was referred to the government. It also discussed the initial draft of the committee’s general report and approved it. A reporter of the committee was also selected to present the draft state budget during Majlis A’Shura’s next session.

It is worth mentioning that Majlis A’Shura will host the Minister of National Economy at the next session to discuss the draft state budget for the fiscal 2009.

Meanwhile, the Services and Local Communities Development Committee held its first regular meeting for the second session of the sixth term of Majlis A’Shura under the chairmanship of HE Mohammed Bin Saied Al Kalbani, Chairman of the committee.

The committee approved the minutes of the previous meeting, discussed the annual report of the Ministry of Transport and Communications for 2007, identified, evaluated and prepared remarks on it.

The report covers the major programs and projects implemented by the ministry in 2007 in road, land transportation, ports, marine affairs, civil aviation sector affairs and communications sector. The committee also reviewed its draft report on the Ministry of Sports Affairs annual report for 2007, which included the major programs and projects implemented by the ministry last year.

The committee made its remarks on various sports fields in the Sultanate and submitted its proposals and solutions on them.

Meanwhile, the English Group at Sultan Qaboos University organized ‘Loyalty Day’, coinciding with the Sultanate’s 38th National Day celebrations. The event was held under the theme "Where His Majesty Resides, Loyalty Abides".

The members of the English Group had started their preparations for the event right from the onset of the academic year. By way of ‘Loyalty Day’ celebrations, the students expressed their love for His Majesty and the whole country.

The function started with activities held at the Language Centre of the university, highlighting the friendly relationship that the Sultanate maintains with other nations. With the assistance of some faculty members a competition at Language Centre on the best presentation was organized apart from holding a video show about Oman and a doll theatre.

An exhibition showcasing the rich cultural tradition of Oman was held near the deanship of Student Affairs building. The entrance of the pavilion was named Mutrah Gate. Stalls were set up to accommodate a silver shop, a counter promoting the tourism potential of Oman and Omani Women’s Association in Al Seeb.

School students performed some Omani traditional games. The creations of artist Talib Al Rubaiei were exhibited at the venue.

As part of the celebration, the group also organized ‘Omani Cultural Night’ in the conference hall of SQU under the patronage of Dr Hamed Al Salmi, deputy vice-chancellor for Administrative and Finance Affairs. The members of the group enacted a play written and directed by them. The theme of the play was related to traditional Omani life. A show, featuring the traditions of various regions of the country, added color to the celebrations.

Maqbool bin Ali Sultan, minister of commerce and industry, has announced that the government would set up an Investment Fund with a capital of RO150 million with a 60 per cent (RO90 million) participation by the government and 40 per cent (RO60 million) participation by the private sector and pension funds, the MSM website stated.

It is being said the details would be finalized next week and the investments would be made in December.

Times of Oman had reported the need for such a fund in its Thursday edition.

The establishment of the Investment Fund is aimed at creating market stability in Muscat Securities Market and restoring investor confidence.

According to the MSM report, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry took the initiative and invited some financial and banking institutions to contribute to the capital of the fund that aims at striking a balance in the securities market in the Sultanate through investment in securities.

“The fund will be managed by a professional management on a commercial basis to provide protection from undue volatility in the securities markets. It will buy the securities of index-listed companies the prices of which the management feels are appropriate and sell the securities when prices rise to provide liquidity for market participants and gains to the fund,” the report says.

“The government hopes the establishment of the fund will restore confidence in the investment environment through policies that ensure success and development of the securities market as an important instrument of the financial sector which is the linchpin of the economic development process,” the reports adds.

Experts welcomed the decision and said this was a step in the right direction. They say this will improve the confidence and remove the uncertainty, as the fund will be a long-term one.

Experts, however, cautioned investors not to expect any major upsurge in the market as the aim of the fund is to stabilize the market and prevent panic selling rather than pushing the market higher.

“We do expect profit booking at higher levels once the fund starts operations as a lot of investors will front run in the stocks to sell it at higher levels to the fund when it starts operations,” they state.

Meanwhile, Muscat Securities Market (MSM) surged over three per cent on the last trading day of the week on news that the government will come out with a market stabilization fund.

Sunil Dhall, vice-president of Gulf Baader Capital Markets, observed that there was active buying in front line stocks including Raysut Cement and National Bank of Oman. The market witnessed increased activity of more than nearly 11m shares and there were 37 advances compared to six declines, signs of improved investor participation, according to Dhall.

A major boost was given to Oman’s quest for foreign investment inflow at the weekend as the country was named among the least vulnerable economies in the world, according to a report, Global Economics, compiled by a team of experts from Merrill Lynch.

Oman is the only country from the AGCC which makes it to the elite list. Merrill Lynch is one of the world’s leading financial management and advisory companies, providing financial advice and investment banking services.

The report was compiled following several data requests from clients of the investment bank for key risk indicators for all major economies including Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

According to the statistics, the world’s 10 least vulnerable economies are Nigeria, Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, Egypt, Oman, Indonesia, Peru, China and Russia. Also, the report identified Australia, Switzerland, Korea, Romania, Hungary, Sweden, Bulgaria, Euro area, the United Kingdom and the United States of America as the highest risk economies in the world.

The risk ranking was based on seven indicators and they are — current account financing gap, foreign exchange reserves/short-term external debt ratio, private credit-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio, and private credit growth, loans to deposits and banks capital-to-assets ratio.

Merrill Lynch said the report also addressed all the requests in 62 indicators of the 60 world economies.

Massive sell-offs in the regional stock markets early this week triggered panic selling on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) as well.

“The MSM is oversold and the fall is overdone. Oil price crash is the reason behind the negative sentiment in the region. Oil price has fallen below $55 which has led to panic selling in the markets,” said Sunil Dhall, vice-president of Gulf Bader Capital Markets.

“The sentiment was completely negative across the board with all sellers and few buyers,” Dhall said.

“Any fall below $50 will see a massive production cut by OPEC and that level will be defendant,” he said.

Experts, however, continue to believe that the Omani macro story remains intact and the fundamentals are sound even with oil at the current price.

“We expect foreign inflows to resume once the stock markets worldwide stabilize. This is being witnessed in the stock market where selective enquiries in stocks like Oman Cables, Voltamp Energy is being witnessed from overseas investors while bargain hunters continue to buy in frontline stocks like BankMuscat and Galfar Engineering,” industry experts say.

Ahmed bin Abdulnabi Macki, minister of national economy and deputy chairman of the Financial Affairs and Energy Resources Council and chairman of Oman Shipping Company (OSC), and Maqbool bin Ali Sultan, commerce and industry minister and chairman of Oman Oil Company (OOC), met Mario Carmenshi, chief executive officer for oil and gas exploration at the Brazilian oil company Petrobras in Brasilia.

During the meeting, Macki expressed the Sultanate government’s keenness to establish joint investment cooperation between the two countries in a number of developmental sectors.

“We, in the Sultanate of Oman, have investment opportunities that Brazilian companies can enter into, especially since the Sultanate follows a free economic policy and encourages foreign investment which can achieve mutual interests and enhance bilateral cooperation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Maqbool said Petrobras could enter into investment projects being implemented by the government, through OOC, which have today investment projects in oil, gas, petrochemicals and energy fields world wide.

He stressed the importance of exchanging visits between OOC and Petrobras officials, to identify potentials and opportunities of each side to establish joint investment projects.

On his turn, the Petrobras CEO underlined the importance of the visit. “We will dispatch a number of officials and geologists during the forthcoming days to the Sultanate to explore the possibility of establishing joint investment cooperation with OOC, particularly as we know that the Sultanate possesses geographical and natural potentials which would encourage geologists to study it and decide the possibility of exploitation.”

Petrobras, with the Brazilian government having 50 per cent stake, is operating in exploitation of oil and gas, energy, refineries, petrochemicals, petrol filling stations and storage.

Petrobras, with 50,000 staff and investments in 14 countries, 700 petrol filling stations, 11 refineries and 100 oil rigs, produces 2.2 million barrel of oil per day.

Meanwhile, Macki and Maqbool met Armando Carvalho, vice-president of Brazilian Development Bank (BDB).

The meeting explored the possibility of establishing joint cooperation between the Sultanate’s government and BDB.

“Having an office of Vale in the Sultanate denotes the Sultanate’s good reputation and image which may encourage other Brazilian companies to do the same,” Macki said, adding that the Sultanate enjoyed security and stability that could encourage investments.

On his turn, Maqbool said BDB might contribute in supporting Omani and Brazilian projects in both the countries, particularly as that the Sultanate was intending to implement a number of projects. The BDB vice-president also said that BDB was willing to offer all that it could to achieve joint interest of both sides.

BDB is increasing and developing its domestic and foreign investment where its investments are expected to hit $300 million by 2011.

A briefing was given during the meeting on BDB’s goals and policies and its contributions in economic and investment activities in Brazil, the support it renders to small, medium and large enterprises.

The Omani economy has made an impressive growth during the first half of this year.

The Sultanate’s GDP rose by 46.4 per cent to hit RO 10.52 billion compared to RO7.18 billion in the corresponding period in 2007.

This was attributed to the oil exports revenues which hit RO5.3 billion and the growth of the revenues of non-oil activities from RO4.02 billion to RO5.4 billion.

The government revenues during the first eight months this year witnessed a growth by 47.2 per cent to hit RO 5,787 million compared to RO 3,930.1 million during the corresponding period in 2007.

The GDP of the Sultanate at the current rates in 2007 amounted to about RO 15.51 billion compared to RO13.74 billion in 2006.

The Sultanate has realized that planning and organization are the basis of drafting its policies including foreign policy. The Sultanate’s political stance takes into considerations, the values of the state as well as its potentialities and capabilities.