Saudi Arabia to provide Oman with rare grant to develop Duqm projects
Oman has accepted a $210
million grant from Saudi Arabia to fund two projects at its flagship Arabian
Sea port of Duqm, a rare agreement between two countries that often differ on
some of the Middle East’s biggest disputes.
The funding, to be provided by
the Saudi Development Fund, will finance a 61-million-rial ($158 million)
fishing facility and a road costing 20 million rials, state-run Oman News
Agency reported Thursday. Oman wants to develop Duqm into a major hub, and is
building a 230,000 barrel per day oil refinery there with Kuwait.
Muscat rarely takes handouts.
The Gulf Cooperation Council offered it a $10 billion aid package following
protests in 2011, but it’s not known how much, if anything, was disbursed.
Following reports of a 1-billion-dirham grant by the United Arab Emirates in 2014,
Oman’s foreign minister said his country had “never asked for it.”
“This grant comes within the
framework of developing economic cooperation between the two countries” and
programs to develop the GCC, Omani Finance Minister Darwish Al Balushi said.
The Saudi fund also set aside $150 million to finance Omani small- and
medium-sized enterprises.
Muscat hosted secret
negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear agreement between world powers and
Saudi Arabia’s arch-nemesis Iran. It has also refused to take sides in Riyadh’s
war in Yemen and boycott of Qatar.
