The Sultanate of Oman is not in talks with any of its Gulf neighbours for an aid package, despite a large fiscal deficit, which is decreasing and expectations that the economic growth might slow down this year, according to media sources.
“Not from our side. I have not discussed anything,” Tahir Al Amri, Executive President of the Central Bank of Oman (CBO), was quoted as saying to reporters in Kuwait ahead of a banking conference recently.
Having been hit by a slump in oil prices in the recent years, the CBO has pegged the nation’s real Gross Domestic Growth (GDP) at 1.1% this year, down from an estimated 2.2% last year.
As per recent reports by the Central Bank, the Sultanate’s nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP), fell by 1.6% during the first quarter of 2019, after having grown at an accelerated pace of 12% during 2018.
“The slowdown was pervasive across hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon activities, which experienced a nominal contraction of 0.5% each during Q1 of 2019 as compared to a nominal growth of 20.9% and 3.4%, respectively, during Q1 of 2018.”
The nation’s fiscal position is still not strong enough, despite the U$3 billion bond issuance in July. Earlier in March Moody’s downgraded Oman’s credit rating to junk and so had Fitch and S&P.
However, a recent report from the Ministry of Finance shows that Oman’s deficit has decreased by a billion rials over the past year, according to the final state accounts.
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Ministerial Decision number 171/2019, signed by HE Darwish Al Balushi, Oman’s Minister of Finance, showed that Oman’s deficit stood at OMR2.649bn in 2018, a billion rials less than the OMR3.759 billion that was posted in 2017.
According to Amri, the deficit was decreasing mostly due to control on spending, and “we’ve got a little bit more money from the excise tax.”
The country has also been adopting new rules and regulations to ease the inflow of foreign investment into the country and according to statistics, released by National Centre for Statistics and Information, the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Sultanate for the year 2018 stood at RO 10.56 billion, recording a growth of RO 1.36 billion from the same period of the previous year.
