Muscat – The Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (ASMED), in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, launched the Riyada Academy platform last week.

A statement issued by ASMED said that the academy is an electronic training platform specialised in developing entrepreneurial projects.

‘The academy will provide practical steps for the success of SMEs in an innovative manner. It targets school and university students, government and private sector employees, as well as entrepreneurs, jobseekers, and those interested in the field of entrepreneurship.’

The platform provides training courses for owners of SMEs and startups, providing them with basic skills to manage and operate their enterprises in accordance with global and digital best practices, and qualify them through virtual courses and workshops.

The Riyada Academy platform also contains a library specialised in entrepreneurship, with a capacity to engage up to 10,000 users, and provides virtual educational content without fees, in addition to the ease of preparing courses on the platform by trainers.

Meanwhile, according to ASMED’s statistic the total number of SMEs registered in the country until September 2022 was 210,877, while the number of SMEs registered with the authority until December 2022 was 104,141.

The statistics show that the number of active enterprises that obtained the Entrepreneurship Card (Riyada) was 37,489, and their contribution to exports amounted to more than RO2bn, according to September 2020 data.