The Sultanate of Oman celebrates today the 48th anniversary of the launch of its modern renaissance under the leadership of Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
July 23, 1970 represented the beginning of a glorious era to build a better life for the Omani citizens who were able to contribute to achieving the country’s development goals through the elements of the renaissance.
Under the leadership of Sultan Qaboos, this glorious day opened a new era of development, progress and prosperity in the Sultanate in all fields, prompting the citizen to build a modern state capable of restoring the glory of Oman and its cultural role in the region and the world, on the basis of citizenship, equality, the rule of law and the spirit of the times.
Since the first day, Sultan Qaboos was keen on ensuring that the Omani citizen is the maker of the development, its foundation and guardian, and to be the first beneficiary.
Therefore, Sultan Qaboos has made every effort to build the citizen and develop his abilities, especially the Omani youth, to carry out the noble national mission.
The Omani citizen has been the focus of all the national development efforts, plans and programmes for the past 48 years.
With the participation of the Omani citizen, the country’s human and material resources have been mobilised in all fields of education, health, social care, training and culture.
Over the past 48 years, the determination and strong will of Sultan Qaboos with the support, solidarity, loyalty and efforts of his people led the country to remarkable fruitful achievements in all fields.
Since the beginning of the blessed renaissance, the Omani citizen’s participation in development and decision-making has been at the forefront of Sultan Qaboos’s priorities.
He has ensured that Oman has its own experience in the field of Shura, democratic work and citizen participation in national decision-making, which strengthened the development process, contributed to the establishment of a state of institutions and law, and strengthened the values of partnership and the multiplicity of opinions in the context of ensuring the achievement of national interest.
At the beginning of this year, within the framework of the social welfare of citizens and the alleviation of living expenses, the fuel subsidy system has been implemented to support benedictory segments of citizens, whose incomes do not exceed OMR600.
In June, the Omani cabinet decided to increase the base of eligible categories of citizens with total income of OMR950.
Meanwhile, Oman’s Ministry of Manpower, in collaboration with the private sector, succeeded in absorbing 33,302 male and female job-seekers in the private sector during the period from  July 2006 to December 2017, an increase of 32% of the target number of 25,000.
Oman’s 9th Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2020) attaches great importance and priority to the sectors assisting in the diversification of income sources, including enhancing the role of the private sector, further improving the business environment and accelerating the implementation of the privatisation programme and the development of small and medium enterprises.
Tourism, fisheries and mining were selected to be promising economic sectors that will be highlighted during the plan which will contribute to the process of economic diversification as well as other sectors supporting these sectors.
The National Programme for Enhancing Economic Diversification is one of the national programmes underpinning the 9th Five-Year Development Plan.
It aims to contribute to realising the Sultanate’s vision of economic diversification, the participation of the sectors of society in its choices and the implementation of the proposed projects.
In March, the commercial operations of the new Muscat International Airport, which is an important addition to the achievements of the modern renaissance, began.
The airport is one of the building blocks in the Sultanate to achieve the national goals and strategies and to give a great impetus to the tourism sector and enhance the national economy in general and the logistics sector in particular.
The capacity of the new airport is 12mn passengers annually.
Sultan Qaboos’ foreign policy was wise, open minded, frank and credible, making Oman an oasis of security and stability.
Meanwhile, the Sultanate has spared no efforts to work on ending conflicts and to prepare for the restoration of peace, security and stability throughout the Gulf and Arab region.
Since his assumption of power in 1970, Sultan Qaboos has established a clear foreign policy based on the principles of truth, peace and co-operation, spreading a culture of tolerance and peace, extending friendship, co-operation and understanding to all countries and peoples, and abiding by the principles of dialogue to overcome and solve any disputes by peaceful means and in accordance with law and international legitimacy.
The Sultanate of Oman continues its good offices to support efforts to promote understanding and dialogue among countries in resolving all issues so as to enable peoples to continue their development paths in a safer and more stable environment.
This policy has had a positive impact on many issues, which has preserved the Sultanate’s status and its positive role in the region, and made it a partner and an active contributor to the interests of the people.
Thanks to this wise policy, the Omani people win successes both internally and externally.
They are respected wherever they are, and the Sultanate enjoys the trust of all the conflicting parties.
On the internal level, the establishment and development of the armed forces was one of the priorities of the blessed process of renaissance.
The Sultan recognised with his strategic and deep military experience that achieving security and stability is a necessary condition and priority for building, development and prosperity.


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