Stimulating Oman’s economic growth by reinforcing policies to diversify the Countries production capacity. This is the goal of the Sultanate’s 2016 Budget which was recently approved together with the 2016-2020 five-year development plan. Special focus was placed on diversifying production in order to increase the contribution of the non-oil sector in order to raise revenue from the non-energy sector. In this perspective, the 2016 Budget plans to introduce new taxes, maintain investments in the development projects given priority status because of their social and economic nature, incentivise the private sector and rationalise public spending. The 2016-2020 five-year development plan aims to foster an economic growth driven by manufacturing, mining, transports and tourism, which are the sectors towards which the plan intends to attract an ever-growing number of private investments.
More specifically, the new provisions introduce a 3% rise in corporate taxes, reduce tax exemptions, revise the fees of public utilities and homogenise the taxes imposed by different municipalities. Moreover, the plan envisages the privatisation of public companies within the framework of the public spending review, suspends the enlargement of ministerial and governmental facilities and provides to redesign infrastructural projects. Among the programmes aimed at diversifying the economy, particular importance is given to developing the logistics sector.
