Muscat: A forum titled ‘Oman ICV’ seeking to enhance the process of in-country value and impart its benefits to all development sectors was organised on Wednesday under the theme ‘Empowering youth, localising industries and creating opportunities’.

The opening ceremony was held under the auspices of H E Abdul Salam Mohammed al Murshidi, Chairman of Oman Investment Authority (OIA).

The authority and its affiliate firms pay great attention to ICV and have enacted regulatory systems that guarantee the implementation of added value in tenders, procurements and projects, according to H E Murshidi.

He noted that OIA will digitise these regulations so that they can be enforced in a transparent manner. “Certain departments will be entrusted with continuously monitoring and assessing performance in this regard,” he added.

H E Dr Saleh Said al Masan, Undersecretary for Commerce and Industry in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, informed that the forum was expected to lay out a roadmap to consolidate the concept of ICV, and gain impetus from the successful working experience of the oil, gas and petrochemical industries.

He further elaborated that the contribution of ICV in the industrial sector has crossed the RO3.1bn mark and that the contribution of non-petrochemical subsidiary sectors to industrialisation stood at 38 per cent.

Addressing the forum, Abdulamir Abdulhussein al Ajmi, director of External Affairs and Value Creation at Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), said that as many as 200 small and medium enterprises were registered in 2020 and that the value of associated contracts stood at RO118mn. PDO encouraged the retention of 34 per cent of ICV of national products and services within the country in 2020, Ajmi informed.

The forum saw the launch of an initiative called ‘Tahfeez’ (Incentivisation), the first such dealing with goals of developing ICV.

Additionally, seven agreements and memorandums of cooperation were concluded within the context of a training programme linked to employment.

A memorandum of understanding was signed by Oman Society for Petroleum Services (OPAL) and Seeh al Sarya Engineering, while three more MoUs were inked to train graduates of technical specialisations on Industry 4.0 skills. The MoUs include training at three SME ICT companies and to provide 12-month employment for graduates in the field of engineering design.