
OIA assets grew by RO 1.585 bn in 2024
Sultan bin Salem al Habsi, Minister of Finance and Chairman of OIA's Board of Directors, said, 'In 2024, OIA increased its asset size by RO 1.185 billion, reaching RO 20.425 billion compared to RO 19.240 billion in 2023. OIA continued to play its role in advancing the national agenda, contributing RO 800 million to the state's general budget, bringing OIA's total contributions since 2016 to over RO 7 billion.'
According to the Minister, RO 400 million from that contribution was allocated towards the launch of the operational phase of recently developed Future Fund Oman (FFO), which focuses on supporting strategic local projects.
Commenting on the Fund, OIA President Abdulsalam bin Mohammed al Murshidi, shared the following, 'This year, Future Fund Oman (FFO) marked the first year since its launch at the beginning of 2024. FFO was established to support local projects and strategic investments, with a focus on empowering the private sector and attracting foreign investments. It successfully achieved its intended objectives, witnessing strong interest from both local and international investors as it received 294 proposals from various economic diversification sectors. Following OIA's rigorous procedures, 44 partnership proposals were approved, amounting the FFO contribution to RO 333.1 million.'
Al Murshidi also highlighted the growth of the National Development Fund, which manages domestic assets and local companies. 'One of our key achievements is the growth in the asset size of OIA's investment portfolios. In 2024, the National Development Fund's assets increased to RO 12.075 billion, following local investment spending of RO 1.9 billion, which exceeded its 2024 target of RO 1.7 billion.'
According to the OIA President, the portfolio succeeded in doubling foreign direct investments within local sectors—primarily in the energy sector, followed by tourism and mining—compared to the previous year, reaching RO 2.8 billion by the end of 2024.
As for OIA's international investment portfolio, he added that the Future Generations Fund recorded an increase of 6.65%, reaching RO 7.535 billion by the end of 2024, in comparison to RO 7.065 billion in 2023.
Emphasising OIA's ongoing efforts in establishing strategic partnerships, Al Murshidi added: 'Furthermore, our ongoing efforts to strengthen strategic partnerships and localise global industries and technologies continued with the Future Generations Fund invested in the American artificial intelligence company xAI.'
Also during 2024, OIA invested in 13 new investment funds across different sectors, and entered into many strategic partnerships, most notably with Turkey's OYAK Fund to establish a joint fund worth $500 million focused on food, healthcare, energy, mining, and industrial sectors within Oman.
In other notable developments, the Authority repaid RO 1.846 billion in debt during 2024, including RO 545 million by OQ Group, which was settled ahead of its maturity date. In parallel, the Authority successfully reduced total government guarantees from RO 3.4 billion at the end of 2022 to RO 1.8 billion by December 2024.
The Authority ranked 8th globally among Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in terms of average 5-year investment returns.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Observer
4 days ago
- Observer
Trump aims to boost US space industry with less red tape
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump aims to stimulate the domestic space industry by cutting bureaucracy as the competition from countries like China and India heats up. In an executive order signed on Wednesday, the administration outlined plans to strengthen the US position in space by 2030 through a competitive market for launches, a significant increase in launch frequency, and "novel space activities." To achieve this, the government plans to simplify and accelerate approval processes for commercial licenses and US-based operators. The order says ensuring efficient launches and re-entries by US operators is "critical to economic growth, national security, and accomplishing federal space objectives." The policies will help maintain "American space competitiveness and superiority." The executive order sets deadlines for federal agencies, including NASA, to propose measures to reduce regulatory hurdles and identify conflicts with existing rules, such as environmental regulations. The US aims to return humans to the moon by 2027, decades after the last crewed US lunar missions, but ahead of other nations with ambitious space programmes such as China and India. Rapid commercialization and privatization have dramatically changed the space industry in recent years, intensifying the race for a leading position in the sector. — dpa


Observer
6 days ago
- Observer
Lee, Trump to hold summit on security alliance, economy
SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and US President Donald Trump will hold their first summit meeting on August 25 in Washington to discuss strengthening the countries' alliance and economic security partnership, Lee's office said on Tuesday. Lee, who was elected president in a snap election in June, has made it a top priority to help his export-dependent country navigate the dramatic changes in the global trading environment triggered by Trump's tariff policies. "The two leaders will discuss ways to develop the US-South Korea alliance into a comprehensive strategic alliance of the future in response to the changing international security and economic environment," presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung told a briefing. Based on the tariff deal reached last month, the two leaders will advance partnership in the manufacturing sector, including in semiconductors, batteries and shipbuilding, as well as critical minerals and technology, Kang said. A White House official also confirmed the meeting. Trump announced on July 30 that the countries had reached a trade deal that would subject South Korean goods to 15% import duties, lowering the tariff he had initially set against one of America's top trading partners. In return, Trump has said that South Korea will announce investment plans at the upcoming summit and that Seoul had committed to making $350 billion of investments to be "selected" by him. South Korean officials have offered differing details, however, and topics left unresolved by the deal — which has yet to be committed to writing - provide scope for more disputes between the allies. Trump may use the summit to seek more concessions on defence costs and corporate investments, left out of the deal, while non-tariff barriers and currency could prove thorny issues, experts said. Defence costs are expected to emerge as a key issue during the upcoming summit, with Trump having long said South Korea needed to pay more for the roughly 28,500 American troops based there as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War. The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration wanted Seoul to boost defence spending to 3.8 per cent of GDP, up from 2.6 per cent last year, and to increase its $1 billion-plus contribution toward the troops. Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group, said it was unclear if such issues will be raised directly by Trump, but he said he expected that at least at the working level, discussions are going to move beyond trade and investment to the broader alliance. "I think it is more likely that Trump and his team are going to raise at least quietly, issues related to the security alliance," he said. "So that could be putting pressure on President Lee to increase the defence share of government spending." — Reuters


Observer
6 days ago
- Observer
Markets rise as Trump extends China tariff truce
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday extending a trade truce between the United States and China for another three months, providing a reprieve from the threat of escalating tariffs and export controls that have rocked the global economy. The extension, until Nov. 10, provides the two countries more time to work out their differences and sets the stage for a potential summit between Trump and President Xi Jinping, China's leader, later this year. Trump suggested Monday that negotiations were making progress. 'They've been dealing quite nicely — the relationship is very good with President Xi and me,' Trump said at the White House. Top economic officials had been working to finalize a provisional agreement to extend the truce that was reached during meetings in Sweden last month. The deadline for the truce to expire was Tuesday. After the Sweden talks, U.S. officials were optimistic that the president would sign off on the arrangement, though in dramatic fashion, Trump waited until the final hours before the deadline to extend the pause. Had the tariffs snapped back into place, they risked escalating a trade war between the world's two largest economies that rattled global markets this year. With the clock ticking, Trump on Sunday night called on China to quadruple its purchases of American soybeans and noted that doing so would help reduce America's trade deficit with China. 'China is worried about its shortage of soybeans,' Trump wrote on Truth Social in a message directed to Xi. 'Our great farmers produce the most robust soybeans.' The United States and China have held three formal rounds of trade talks this year, after Trump started ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese imports. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods ultimately reached 145%, and China curbed the exports of rare earth magnets that are critical to American manufacturers. To de-escalate the tension, a 90-day truce was reached under which the U.S. reduced its China tariffs to 30% while China lowered its tariffs on U.S. goods to 10% and agreed to export the magnets. After talks in Sweden in late July, Trump's economic advisers exuded optimism that another 90-day extension would be granted. Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could increase to 80% in the absence of an agreement, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed that possibility, suggesting that only technical details needed to be addressed. The scope of the talks has broadened beyond tariffs. Bessent has said he was pressing his Chinese counterparts on U.S. concerns about China's excess manufacturing capacity and its purchases of oil from Russia and Iran. U.S. and Chinese officials have been negotiating over U.S. export controls of microchips that China needs to power artificial intelligence systems. Despite the Trump administration's national security concerns over the trade in semiconductors and other products, it has taken a transactional approach to negotiations. Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are expected to pay the United States 15% of the money they generate from selling AI chips to China, as part of a highly unusual financial agreement with the Trump administration. The trade talks with China have been on a separate track from the negotiations that the Trump administration has been having with other trading partners. This month, the United States announced a flurry of trade deals, with Japan, South Korea, and the European Union making big U.S. investment commitments in exchange for lower tariff rates. At the same time, Trump continues to deploy tariffs as a tool to address virtually any diplomatic issue. Last week, he doubled tariffs on goods from India to 50%, in part because India refused to curb purchases of Russian oil. The Trump administration has so far refrained from imposing such tariffs on China, which also buys Russian crude. Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News on Sunday that tariffs on China linked to Russian oil purchases are 'on the table' but that Trump has yet to decide on the matter because of the complexity of the relationship. Washington and Beijing reached a broad trade agreement during Trump's first term that included commitments from China to buy billions of dollars' worth of U.S. farm products. However, China didn't follow through on that agreement as the COVID-19 pandemic set in, and relations between the two countries frayed. Trump has maintained that he is open to meeting with Xi but said last week that he would only do so if the two countries reached a trade pact. 'He asked for a meeting, and I'll end up having a meeting before the end of the year most likely, if we make a deal,' Trump said of Xi on CNBC last week. 'If we don't make a deal, I'm not going to have a meeting.' This article originally appeared in Asian markets mostly rose Tuesday, with Tokyo hitting a record, as investors welcomed the extension of a China-US tariff truce but looked ahead apprehensively to the release of key US inflation data later in the day. Donald Trump's widely expected trade announcement avoids the reimposition of sky-high levies and allows officials from Washington and Beijing to continue talking into November to settle their standoff. In an executive order, the White House reiterated its position that there are "large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits" and they "constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States". However, William Yang, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, said: "Beijing will be happy to keep the US-China negotiation going, but it is unlikely to make concessions."