Oman Revises FDI Law

Oman’s Foreign Capital Investment Law, an important statute that provides assurance to foreign investors that their capital in the sultanate is safe and secure, is being revamped to bring it into line with modern trends and developments, according to the Central Bank of Oman.

The new law, according to the apex bank, aims to address “major concerns and shortcomings” in the existing regulations. Additionally, it will enshrine and embed the rights and obligations of foreign investors, it added in a mid-year review of Omani macroeconomic developments, Zawya reported.

 “The proposed investment law provides dispute resolution and includes international arbitration,” the Central Bank of Oman said. “Given the fact that Oman is a free economy, there is no restriction on remittances abroad of equity, debt, capital, interest, dividends, profits and personal savings.

Moreover, the fixed exchange rate of Omani rial provides certainty of returns to the foreign investors in the absence of exchange rate risk,” it stated.

The need for a modernized Foreign Capital Investment Law, the central bank stressed, is dictated by the nation’s longstanding commitment to a policy championing an “open market economy based on free competition in which the private sector is encourage and facilitated to play a leading role”.

A key objective of this policy, it noted, is to aid investment inflows into the country by providing a robust regulatory framework to facilitate such inflows. This “investor-friendly legislative environment” coupled with Oman’s stable macroeconomic setting and political stability, has indeed made the sultanate an appealing destination for foreign direct investment, it said.

“In order to attract higher foreign investment flows for sustaining economic growth in the milieu of low oil prices, Oman’s Foreign Capital Investment Law is being revised comprehensively,” the central bank added.