EU Statement at the Trade Policy Review of the Sultanate of Oman, 17 November 2021

On behalf of the European Union, I would first like to welcome the Delegation of Oman, led by H. E. Mr. Qais bin Mohammed Al Yousef, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion. I would also like to thank the WTO Secretariat and the Delegation of Oman for their reports and the Discussant H.E. Mr. Muhammad Mujtaba Piracha (Ambassador of Pakistan) for his remarks.

Chair, this is the third review for Oman and I would like to start by noting that overall, the country is moving in the right direction.

Since the last review of Oman in 2014 (jointly with Bahrain and Qatar) the country’s economy was affected by the impact of the global pandemic and by the drop in prices in the international energy markets, as the energy sector and the hydrocarbons production remains the backbone of Oman’s economy, industrial output and trade.

As already noted in previous reviews, Oman – similarly to other GCC countries – is fully aware of the need to avoid too high dependence on the energy sector and the country is implementing specific strategies aiming at diversifying their economies under the “Vision 2040”.

In order to help this process in 2019 - jointly with our GCC partners – the EU have initiated the “EU-GCC Economic Diversification Project” which is ongoing and aims at supporting economic diversification in the Gulf economies. One of the key goals of the project is to learn from each other’s best practices through preparing specific studies and events (some of them having been hosted by Oman). The project involves stakeholders, both from the private and public sector in areas, such as standards, investment promotion, IPR protection as well as in new emerging areas, including circular economy, digitalization and connectivity as well as employment and Omanization.

As part of this project in the context of the ongoing Expo Dubai, significant events have been organized including a conference on the participation of women in the tech sectors and a high-level EU-GCC Business Forum focussing on economic diversification.

Oman is actively engaging in this project, which the EU appreciates, and we think that these exchanges and long-term strategic plans will help the country to improve further its economy by making it more sustainable and knowledge-based in the coming years.

A word on our bilateral relationship. In 2018, the EU and Oman signed a Cooperation Arrangement to enhance our dialogue in areas of common interest, including trade, investment, and economic cooperation in general, which provides a well-established framework for our bilateral engagement.

The EU remains a very important trading partner for Oman with a bilateral trade in goods reaching EUR 3.3 billion in 2020 and trade in services amounting to EUR 2.9 billion in 2019 (last available data). The EU is the country’s sixth trading partner and the second source of imports covering more than 10% of country’s imports. EU FDI in Oman has also significantly increased over the past few years, with a stock of EUR 10.4 billion European investment in the country in 2019 from 1.3 billion Euros in 2018 (last available data).

At the multilateral level, the EU commends Oman on implementation of all of its commitments under the Trade Facilitation Agreement and the amendment of the TRIPS Agreement in 2017 as well as their engagement in the WTO negotiations on fisheries subsidies. The EU stresses the need to achieve concrete results at the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference to show that the WTO can deliver on the economic recovery, on trade and health and on sustainability. We call for Oman’s cooperation in the WTO reform discussions. Specifically on services, we encourage Oman to join the group of WTO Members that are committed to bringing the Joint Initiative on services domestic regulation to a successful conclusion by MC12. This initiative is of great importance to service suppliers across the world and will help them in their recovery from the pandemic. We also encourage Oman to join the MPIA.

Let me also welcome the accession of Oman to the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications. The Geneva Act is a significant tool for the protection of GIs around the world and it is for the time being the only multilateral basis for GI protection.

Chair, despite these positive aspects, the EU submitted a number of questions and concerns, namely on public procurement requirements and procedures, standards for certain products and IPR.

We understand that in early 2021 the responsibility for food safety has been shifted from the Ministry of Commerce to the Division of Food Safety and Quality Control under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture.  We are confident that the new organizational set-up is smoothly functioning by now and will shortly help resolving the market-access issue we have on the olive oil extra virgin and pomace oil to Oman.

Chair, let me conclude by recalling that the EU is looking forward to Oman’s responses to the questions we have put forward today and others that we have previously submitted in writing. On behalf of the EU, I wish Oman a very productive and successful review.