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Observer
03-06-2025
- Business
- Observer
A vision for a sustainable digital future
Digital transformation is a crucial catalyst for a country's development. Its adoption across various sectors enables nations to achieve significant improvements in productivity, efficiency and innovation. The Sultanate of Oman is a country that has made significant strides towards creating a digitally empowered society and economy. Aligning with Oman Vision 2040, the country's digital transformation aims to build a sustainable knowledge society and increase the contribution of the digital economy to its GDP, improve government services and empower the workforce. The country is now poised to unlock new opportunities, enhance efficiency and improve the quality of life for its citizens and residents. Many international agencies have acknowledged and honoured Oman for this transformative journey to modernise its economy and society. In this context is Oman's improvement 2024 ranking in the Government Electronic and Mobile Services Maturity Index (GEMS) with a score of 72 per cent, up from 66 per cent in 2023. The report released by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia covers 17 Arab countries and assesses digital government performance across three key dimensions – service availability and development, service uptake and satisfaction, and government outreach and engagement. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led the index with scores of 96 per cent and 95 per cent, respectively, reflecting strong progress in national digital transformation. The index covers a wide range of sectors, including health, education, transportation, finance, justice, trade, tourism and social affairs. In a recent report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 'underpinned by its Vision 2040, Oman has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda aiming at reducing its reliance on hydrocarbons and creating a more sustainable, more inclusive and knowledge-based economy.' Oman Vision 2040 aims to elevate the country's ranking to be among the top 20 countries globally in developing electronic services and improving its global standing in e-government development and ease of doing business indicators. The IMF eLibrary report that took stock of the state of digital transformation in Oman highlights the recent launch of the country's National Digital Economy Programme also known as "Tahweel" that aims to provide a strategic direction for the development of the digital economy and increase its contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from its current level estimated at 2 per cent to 10 per cent by 2040. The Tahweel programme plays a crucial role in enhancing participation and enabling individuals, citizens, residents and private sector institutions to contribute effectively to developing government services by submitting reports, complaints and suggestions. In addition, this programme aims to advance Oman's global ranking in various digital economy indicators identified in Vision 2040, such as the e-government development index and the network readiness index. However, the IMF report suggests that while Oman has progressed well on many aspects of digitalisation, such as Internet penetration and 4G and 5G population coverage, it still needs to deploy additional investments and efforts to match its GCC peers on several other aspects. 'Further efforts are particularly needed to raise Internet connection speed, increase the prevalence of advanced ICT skills among the population, usher in digital innovation and promote e-commerce. The analyses indicate that enhanced digitalisation, can, in turn, engender substantial gains," the report suggests. A report by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology stated that government entities in Oman have made remarkable progress in implementing digital transformation requirements. According to the report, the Tahweel programme has achieved an overall performance rate of 73 per cent by the end of November 2024, a significant increase from 53 per cent in 2023. Government institutions demonstrated an average performance of 77 per cent in meeting digital transformation requirements, while governorates averaged 71 per cent. BLURB Oman is now poised to unlock new opportunities, enhance efficiency and improve the quality of life for its citizens and residents. Many international agencies have acknowledged and honoured Oman for this transformative journey to modernise its economy and society
South China Morning Post
28-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
After a year's delay, Hong Kong is ready to roll out waste charging
It's been a year since Hong Kong shelved its plan to charge households for the waste they produce. Are we any closer to introducing waste charging? Advertisement Earlier this month, the Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said the government has been assessing the situation and would report its findings soon to the Legislative Council's Panel on Environmental Affairs. He noted that many conditions had to be in place before the scheme could be rolled out. We believe the time is right. Over the past year, the government has enhanced its support for recycling and public education. This is a key improvement, given that low recycling rates and low public awareness were the main reasons for the botched roll-out last year. Tse highlighted significant progress made, including an 80 per cent increase in visits to the Green@Community recycling network and a nearly 60 per cent rise in recyclables collected in 2024. The government has installed 1,200 smart collection bins for food waste in housing estates across the city, with the aim of increasing the number to 1,600 this year. Meanwhile, the daily per capita municipal solid waste disposal rate dropped from 1.44kg in 2023 to 1.4kg in 2024. Besides, waste charging would benefit the economy, as South Korea's experience shows. South Korea introduced waste charging in 1995. By 2004, it saw a 24 per cent reduction in waste volume and gained an estimated 8 trillion won (US$5.6 billion) in economic benefits, in terms of avoided waste treatment costs and the market value of increased recycling products, according to a case study by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Advertisement Waste charging could yield similar benefits for Hong Kong. Our Hong Kong Foundation researcher Peter Lam Kung-shing has found that every tonne in waste reduction generates a net benefit of HK$955.50, while every tonne of waste recycling yields HK$125.60. The estimated net benefit of waste charging is HK$637.3 million per year.
