The International Monetary Fund’s technical assistance for Oman doesn’t come with conditions and isn’t going to lead to any financial assistance, its mission chief to the Gulf country said.
“The medium-term fiscal plan is not a plan with the IMF, it is the authorities’ own plan,” Daniel Kanda told Bloomberg in an interview late Wednesday. “It was pretty much completed by the time we got into the picture, it’s not something that was jointly developed.”
Struggling with the aftermath of lower oil prices and Covid-19, Oman has been seeking ways to tame its budget shortfall and diversify the economy as crude reserves dwindle. As part of an ambitious economic overhaul, it’s cut public spending, slashed government jobs and implemented a value-added tax. It also plans to introduce an income tax -- unheard of in the oil-exporting Gulf region -- which Kanda said would be implemented in the second half of 2022.
The IMF said this week that the sultanate had also asked for technical assistance to develop a program that would help it eliminate its budget deficit over the medium term by diversifying the economy and reducing the government’s reliance on hydrocarbons. The plan is aimed at reducing Oman’s reliance on international borrowing.
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