OPAZ Board of Directors holds its third meeting

Muscat - 20 September 2022

The Board of Directors of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ) held today (September 20, 2022), its third meeting for the year 2022. The meeting was chaired by His Excellency Dr. Ali bin Masoud Al Sunaidy, Chairman of the Board, at OPAZ headquarters in Muscat.

The Board approved the registration fees mechanism for the usufruct contracts of real estate properties in the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (SEZAD). Accordingly, SEZAD will later announce the relevant details. Further, the Board approved a number of other usufruct applications related to the electricity sector, as well as approving the vision and mission of OPAZ.

During the meeting, OPAZ Board of Directors was briefed on the proposed investment promotion strategy to attract more projects to the zones during the next phase. The Board was also updated on the different efforts made to transfer the affiliation of the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates “Madayn” to OPAZ as per the Royal Decree No. (53/2022) and the actions that have been taken towards integration between the industrial cities, the free zones and the special economic zones supervised by OPAZ. Moreover, the meeting touched on the reports related to the challenges facing applications for establishing cement projects in the zones.

It is noteworthy that OPAZ was established by the Royal Decree No. (105/2020) on August 18, 2020 to supervise the Special Economic Zone at Duqm, the free zones in Sohar, Salalah, Al Mazunah and any other special economic zone or free zone in the Sultanate of Oman. Furthermore, OPAZ supervises the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (Madayn) as per the Royal Decree No. (53/2022).