The volume of foreign direct investments in Oman increased by 23.3 percent to reach OMR 21.27 billion ($55.72 billion) by the end of the first quarter, compared to OMR 17.25 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
According to preliminary data issued by the National Center for Statistics and Information, the oil and gas extraction activities sector acquired the largest volume of foreign direct investment until the end of the first quarter of 2023, with a value of 15.835 billion rials.
Total assets at Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, the Oman Investment Authority, reached 17.9 billion rials ($46.61 billion) in 2022, the fund said in its annual report on Wednesday.
The OIA said its return-on-investment last year was 8.8 percent, and it added that it has contributed more than 5 billion rials to the finance ministry in dividends to support the general budget.
Among its major assets, the OIA wholly owns Oman's main energy holding company OQ, created to centralize the state's oil and gas investments.
OQ’s 2022 revenue was up 68 percent on the previous year, leading to a 100 percent increase in net profit last year, the fund wrote in the report, without providing further financial details.
The OIA said in December it aimed to spend 1.9 billion rials on investment projects in 2023. It has recently partnered with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, to jointly invest in Oman’s economy.
It also signed an MoU with the aim to expand and explore cooperation and investment opportunities by allocating $5 billion for potential Saudi investments in Oman.
Saudi Arabia has intensified its investments in Oman to express support to the Sultanate as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and seeks to develop non-oil sectors.
In October, the Public Investment Fund established five regional investment companies with targeted investments of $24 billion as part of a strategy to grow its Assets Under Management and diversify the Kingdom’s revenue sources.
Separately, the final work procedure of the Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industries Project in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm continues to progress, with the construction work rate exceeding 98 percent.
In addition, the refinery's soft operations progress has reached more than 65 percent, said Oman News Agency on Twitter.
The trial operations also included the export of the first shipments of naphtha through the storage and export berth in the port of Duqm.
Naphtha is one of the main products of the refinery for global markets, which paves the way for the start of exporting other products, such as diesel, aviation fuel, liquefied petroleum gas, and other energy products to regional and global markets.
It is a joint project between Oman and Kuwait. The venture is one of the largest investment projects in the refinery and petrochemical sector between the two Gulf countries.
It will contribute to increasing the refining capacity of the Sultanate by 230,000 barrels per day.
