Muscat – Create new business opportunities for Italian SMEs in Oman, a country with which the economic relations are growing strong and steady (interchange of 728 million Euros in 2015, an increase of 58.3% compared to 2014): this is the objective of the first videoconference between small and medium-sized Italian companies and Omani opened this morning by the economic Development Minister Federica Guidi in conjunction with the Minister of Trade and Industry of the Sultanate, Ali bin Masoud Al Sunaidy that it had met Guidi during his mission in Muscat in November last year. The meeting was attended by many representatives of companies and associations joined by ICE, SACE, Simest, Unioncamere and ENEA. At the center of the videoconference, the possibility of agreements between Italian and Omani companies in the sectors of tourism and amusement parks, industrial chemical, agricultural and fishing industry, machinery (processing and packaging), the mining sector (including stone and marble ), renewable energies and cosmetics. Minister Guidi recalled in his speech that in Italy there are 4.4 million SMEs accounting for 99.9% of domestic enterprises, 80% of employment and 67% of the added value produced annually. Half of Italian exports to Oman consists of machinery followed by tubes (12%) while imports represented 40% of the first and pears 29% of steel products. The Italian companies operating in Oman – said the minister – are already engaged in sectors such as construction of roads, hospitals, airports, ports, railways, aqueducts and dams. Particularly interesting for Italian SMEs are the objectives of the ninth five-year development plan of Oman that encourages the development of manufacturing industry, logistics, tourism, fisheries and mining. (9Colonne)
