An important date in Oman and Saudi diplomacy

Sultanate of Oman’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, HH Sayyid Faisal bin Turki al Said, has been in the post little over six months now, and this week sees an important development in bilateral relations and economic cooperation.

Meetings have been followed by the high official delegation visits and the virtual meetings.

“I think the timing could not have been more perfect than now with His Majesty’s visit. This is going to basically be concreting or cementing of everything that we have been doing and putting a solid foundation to what is yet to come. In the following weeks and months from now on as well. So this visit, in the context of what we’re doing and the context of Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Oman comes at a very important time. And I think it will set the standard for what is yet to come in the future as well,” said HH Sayyid Faisal speaking to the Observer from Saudi Arabia.

Priority sectors

When asked about the potential areas of cooperation and investment, according to him he said, “As we met the government officials in Saudi Arabia, it was crucial that, first of all, that we understand and go to what is happening in Saudi Arabia and more specifically in the context of the 2030 vision. And it was very interesting to see the transformation that has happened in Saudi Arabia. But if I were to summarise what could be the areas of collaboration that have been explored and needs to be further explored, they would be manufacturing, tourism, logistics, fisheries and technology, which will obviously be complemented by other sectors in the same context.

“This falls within how we perceive our priority sectors and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.

“While logistics is one of the potential areas, the reports on the road network between Oman and Saudi Arabia reaching the final stages has created excitement.”

He said it was around 2016 when it was officially talked about and announced, but what many people do not understand is that there are so many technical challenges and, more importantly, on the side of Saudi Arabia and this is purely because of the nature of the Empty Quarter and the hard environment that is there.

“This has been among the top priorities in terms of the discussions that I have been attending with officials from both sides.

“It has been apparent that this is going to be one among the top priority focus areas. Why so?

“Because if we were to talk about attracting more businesses, encouraging investments from Saudi Arabia and vice versa, logistics is significant.

“The road providing access is one of the world’s most important strategic projects that both sides have been committed to.

“We are extremely hopeful that before the end of the year, it would be officially inaugurated,” he explained.

“Now, this means different things to different people or the general public. That is simply road access that is easy and for businesses, it means so many things ease of doing business, moving goods, getting closer to providing services and so on. But what is going to be more important is regardless of when this road would be actually officially inaugurated is I think, how businesses and governments would be working in terms of complementing services that would be required as well,” the ambassador pointed out.

VISIONS

Looking into Saudi Arabia’s achievements in diversification HH Sayyid Faisal said, “In December while in Oman when we were sitting with a team looking into the vision 2040, we created a comparison between the two visions and not looking into the obvious things of the economy.

“There are so many common denominators between the two in terms of the approach of the business, in terms of the projects, and to our priority sectors, in terms of the programmes on the application. What I have strongly noticed, and this was important, when we came for a quick business meeting for two days while in Ithra and when I came in as an ambassador in 2021, there was a huge change in terms of how the government is basically operating, in terms of how they are setting the scene for shaping up the future of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — e-government integration making it easier for the West to do business with Saudi Arabia, and attracting foreign investments and multinational companies.

“This notion of moving up the culture of the private sector and the values of the private sector and how it does business with the public sector.

“The government has been more dynamic, all of the factors that show the sincerity and the commitment whether it was in the leadership, within those ministries and the top management as well. This vision is shaping the future of Saudi Arabia.”

He added that the commitment of diversifying and lessening the dependency on oil is a key driver for the economy.

Golden phase

“This phase of this relationship that I see as the golden phase, and especially for the development of business and economy. It is important to see how and what drives the government officials and the businesses in Saudi Arabia and what that would entail to be acquired as well from the Omanis to share the same values and interests, because honestly, eventually we don’t have the luxury of time.

“We are now facing challenges at the regional level and at our own national level because of Covid-19, because of the drop of oil prices etc,” he said.

According to the ambassador, it is highly significant that Saudi Arabia has completed recently, almost five years since the launch of the new vision and the drive towards changes.

“I think those five years are very important to us as we launch in towards the 10th five-year plan and begin our journey of the 2040. There are so many learnings that we can take and share. Our brothers and colleagues in Saudi Arabia are more than happy to share. In a nutshell, we don’t need to reinvent so many things. We can actually be sharing those experiences of building capacities and moving at a much faster pace towards enabling the mentioned sectors and the collaboration between those two sectors in Oman and in Saudi Arabia.”

“If you go back and remember in January with the conclusion of an earlier summit it was mentioned that to see it as looking into economic complementation of each other, and that’s very important.

“We cannot afford as the GCC nations to go into competing with one another in terms of what we need to do or in the sense of being perceiving that each need to create something that is unique to the nation. So, first of all, it is important to complement the challenge. We have been spending a lot of time in understanding what could be those common denominators and the common grounds that we need to look into.”