Diversified economy will bring growth, resilience to Oman

Diversified economy will bring growth, resilience to Oman

Muscat: Oman's plans for economic diversification will help bring growth to the country and make it more resilient, according to a top official at the World Bank. Issam Abousleiman, the World Bank's country director of the GCC countries, Middle East and North Africa, said in an exclusive interview with Times of Oman that diversification also provides more sustainable levels of growth, and multiple career opportunities for the next generation of graduates. "Taking into consideration that oil and gas are exhaustible resources, which could be depleted or stranded in the future, and over-reliance on oil exacerbates macroeconomic volatility. Diversification will provide a sustainable source of growth and employment when oil resources are depleted," he explained. Abousleiman added that more countries have understood the importance of diversifying, owing to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on economies that manufacture fewer or a limited number of products. "The pandemic has shown that countries that are heavily dependent on one particular sector or resource, such as oil or tourism, for example, are vulnerable to sudden external shocks," he added. "Extreme reliance on one commodity revenues produces large pro-cyclical swings in expenditures, resulting in painful spending cuts and a boom-bust cycle. "This in turn