Monday 10 / February / 2025
Muscat: The Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (ASMED) on Sunday held a press gathering during which it reviewed options for the implementation of more supportive plans for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and discussed its accomplishments in 2024 and the salient features of its plan for 2025.
The media gathering stemmed from ASMED’s approach to consolidate transparency and enhance communication with the community.
During the meeting, Halima Rashid Al Zar’ai, Chairperson of the Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (ASMED), stressed that ASMED ardently undertakes its role in supporting the empowerment of SMEs and startups, entrepreneurs and artisans.
She added that ASMED seeks to upgrade the contribution of all in driving sustainable development through cooperation with the parties concerned, including the Development Bank, Oman Investment Authority (OIA)—represented by “Oman Future Fund”—and the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which licenses alternative financing platforms. She pointed out that this integrated system contributes to providing financing through lending or alternative financing.
She explained that ASMED announced a package of incentives aimed at encouraging project owners to encourage them to keep innovating and growing. The incentives provided by the Authority are in line with the strategic vision of the Sultanate of Oman to empower the SME sector and enable young entrepreneurs to come up with innovative ideas and upgrade them into successful projects that contribute to economic diversification and entrepreneurship as pillars of a promising future.
For his part, Abdullah Ali Al Sunaidi, Director of the Development and Empowerment Department at ASMED, said that the total national workforce in the SME sector stood at 192,714. He pointed out the total number of SMEs that obtained the Entrepreneurship Card in the second half of 2024 stood at 64,436.
He explained that ASMED initiatives aimed at encouraging SME owners included the allocation of not less than 10 percent of government tenders and purchases to SMEs and exempting SMEs from providing temporary insurance (1 percent) when submitting their bids to participate in tenders.
This is in addition to excluding SMEs that obtained entrepreneurship cards from registration and classification fees at the Secretariat General of the Tender Board and cutting down registration fees for small and medium enterprises at the Secretariat General of the Tender Board by 50 percent, he added
Al Sunaidi explained that the total number of trainees who participated in the Entrepreneur Readiness Programme in 2024 stood at 5,222. The programme provides intensive and integrated specialized training to develop the skills of entrepreneurs to help them keep pace with the rapid developments in the entrepreneurship system, notably by enhancing their technical and technological practices that contribute to the sustainability of their projects.
In this context, he said that the total number of specialized and general training programmes until the fourth quarter of 2024 stood at 209 and that 28,853 entrepreneurs benefited from the programmes in terms of general consulting service (3,203 beneficiaries), the economic feasibility study (4,653 beneficiaries) and the guidance programme (229 entrepreneurs).
During 2024, a total of 123 “small enterprises” grew into “medium enterprises” during 2024, while 5 “medium enterprises” grew into “large enterprises”.
He added that ASMED provided opportunities to qualify enterprises through an intensive specialized programme that developed suppliers for 3,844 enterprises. The Authority also provided business opportunities for a total of 2,071 enterprises and 70 ready factories, in cooperation with the Public Authority for Industrial Estates (Madayn), in addition to 60 factories in Al Rusayl Industrial Estate and 10 factories in Nizwa Industrial Estate.
For his part, Qais Rashid Al Tobi, ASMED Deputy Chairman for Finance and Investment, explained that ASMED envisages the financing of not less than 300 enterprises during 2025 in various economic sectors. He added that “Azm” lending portfolio approved 400 financing requests until the end of September 2024 to the tune of more than RO 37.6 million.
He added that ASMED, acting in cooperation with the Development Bank, launched 9 financing programmes with the aim of providing financial funding to entrepreneurs so that they could expand their projects locally and abroad. The step also aimed to encourage entrepreneurs and jobseekers to explore opportunities to benefit from the ease of doing business.
Al Tobi added that ASMED efforts promoted the Sultanate of Oman to the 11th place in the Entrepreneurship Index out of 49 countries covered by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report for 2023.
He explained that Oman also figured among the top 15 countries in the speed of development and growth of startups and among the top 10 countries in attracting talent, according to the Startup Genome Report for the Middle East and North Africa for the year 2023. “These indicators provide evidence about the efficiency of our business environment in attracting innovators and investors,” he added.
