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Muscat Hills work in full swing
The Muscat Golf and Country Club in Seeb will now be known as Muscat Hills. The project's new identity, a golf swing, was unveiled by Sayyid Haitham bin Tarik al Said, Minister of Heritage and Culture, at an exclusive launch event last month. Muscat Hills comprises a golf course, an exclusive gated residential development, boutique resort hotel and country club and premium office space, retail outlets and entertainment options. It will bring the many benefits of championship golf to Oman and rank amongst the best golfing experiences in the region

Prior to the launch, key members of the project, Dr Hussam al Rawahy, deputy chair of the steering committee; Dr Talib al Hosni, member of the steering committee; and Chandra Lahiri, group managing director, addressed the media on the progress. "I can confidently tell you that the golf course will be visibly green by July and ready for play by winter. It will by far be the most spectacular and challenging golf course in Arabia. And given the spectacular topography, it will include both ascending and descending layout. The course will include two large lakes, a number of smaller lakes and a wadi among other hazards," says Rawahy.

A brainchild of Sayyid Kais bin Tarik Al Said, Muscat Hills' PGA standard 18-hole par 72 championship green golf course is designed by Paul Thomas of Dave Thomas Associates. The overall area of the project is 1.2mn sqm, of which 800,000sqm will be used for the golf course.
"The total built up area will only be 18 per cent as we want it to have a low urban density feel to the project," Rawahy adds. On the delays encountered so far, Rawahy said Muscat Hills was the first integrated tourism complex to be announced at a time when the laws on owning freehold property were still being finalised. "Work on the golf course would have required huge amounts of water, a critical natural resource. We decided for the wastewater infrastructure to be developed, particularly the Al Ansab water treatment plant. The golf course will be using only treated water."

The first phase of residential units comprising 80 deluxe villas and 25 exclusive apartment blocks along the periphery of the golf course have already been sold out. "The US$110mn contract has been given to L&T Oman and the housing units will be handed over by October 2009," says Lahiri. The final phase comprising high-value luxury homes in nooks around the golf course will be offered by invitation only. There will also be an academy, not only to teach the game, but also to train Omanis in golf course maintenance.

HSBC launches IBC
Building on its global positioning of being 'the world’s local bank', HSBC has now made seamless banking across countries a reality for its local customers who are set to ‘go international’. HSBC has launched the international banking centre (IBC) in Oman, a unique centre that provides customers with access to banking services that can help them in opening a cross-border account across the IBC network which covers 66 countries.

Says Qamar Saleem, HSBC Oman’s head of business banking, “We introduced our Business Banking Unit (BBU) in Oman last year with a renewed focus on the SME sector. Our BBU supports entrepreneurship as it provides support to customers with a dedicated team and customised products and services. The launch of IBC is yet another step in order to power our clients’ growth locally as well as across the boundaries."

HSBC's business banking proposition in Oman is built around the understanding of three key needs of SMEs. They include access to efficient banking services and channels; access to finance with quick turnaround time; and access to advisory services.

“HSBC offers a number of business banking solutions for the entrepreneur including business banking accounts, business express credit, lending solutions, business select packages, Internet banking, business ATM, dedicated call centre, extensive trade-related services and finance, including factoring, international services and many other tailored solutions,” he adds.
The IBCs are essentially knowledge and processing centres for assisting companies in opening their accounts in other countries.

BP targets 50% Omanisation
Oil and gas major BP is on track to achieve 50 per cent Omanisation by the end of this year. Michael Townshend, president, BP Oman announced this during the inauguration of BP’s new Muscat office and also said the company is all set to undertake seismic operations at the Khazzan/Makarem gas fields in central Oman.

The first recruitment phase has successfully been completed with the hiring of 15 Omani nationals, including five women, into a range of positions including finance, engineering, supply chain management, health and safety, human resources, community and external affairs and office services.

Says Townshend, “BP’s work on the Khazzan/Makarem fields is an important element of Oman’s future energy strategy. Long-term sustainability of the project depends not only on operational and technical aspects, but also on being integral part of the country and the community. BP in Oman – as it does elsewhere in the world – aims as much as possible to be a local energy company and the hiring of Omani nationals is an important step toward achieving this. This is not an easy target, but it is something we should aim for and work hard towards.”

Muscat Finance pays 30% div
The shareholders of Muscat Finance have approved a record dividend of 30 per cent totalling RO2.475mn. The dividend comprises 25 per cent normal dividend (15 per cent cash and ten per cent stock) and an additional five per cent cash dividend to commemorate the completion of 20th year of operations. The company has distributed cumulative dividend of RO19.11mn as against the original capital injection of RO3.4mn in cash.

With this, the share capital would increase to RO 9.075mn mill and would move a step closer to the requirements of Central Bank of Oman to progressively increase share capital to RO10mn by June 30, 2009.

Says Raphael Parambi, CEO of Muscat Finance, "The year 2007 was another successful year for the company with growth in assets and profits. The company has continued to ensure low gearing, substantial capital adequacy, prudent provisioning and a matched asset liability portfolio.
Site visits to The Wave The Wave, Muscat recently welcomed some of their first customers on a site visit to witness the development of their new homes coming up at the project. Their homes have reached stage five of the construction process which means that the bones of the houses are completed, together with electricity, plumbing, air-conditioning, and internal partitions. The roof slab is also completed.

Says Nick Smith, CEO of The Wave, Muscat, "It is a moment of pride for us to be able to show the homeowners their houses taking shape and to see their dream homes become a reality. We are doing everything possible to ensure that our customers are given totally transparent communication regarding the progress of their homes, and to ensure that our construction schedule is on time."

Al Wisal FM goes live
Midnight on March 19 heralded the beginning a brand new Arabic FM radio station, Al Wisal, on 96.5 FM.
Aimed at the expanding18-40 year-old market, the new station will be focusing its efforts on broadcasting local and Arabic hit music. “Many other radio stations have presenters that talk too much, but at Al Wisal, we want to avoid that, as our aim is to entertain,” says Khalid bin Hamoud al Busaidi, chairman of Sabco Group, the umbrella company responsible for Al Wisal FM. Broadcasting 24 hours a day, the station will feature news segments on the hour, within the next month.

“We don’t want to bombard the listener, so we are taking things step by step,” assures Khalid. With Al Wisal translating into English as “Connectivity”, Nadim Attieh, general manager of the station, explains that the station promises to not only connect on a personal level with the audience, but also to provide an interactive experience, where it can reach listeners through a number of different mediums. To facilitate this, a website, www.wisal.fm has been launched.

SRO is now renamed as SDO
The Shell Representative Office has evolved into a limited liability company, Shell Development Oman. “The broad range of activities undertaken by our office from social investment through to learning and technology sharing now exceed the remit of a representative office; we are therefore delighted to announce that as of now will be known as Shell Development Oman," says Dr Andrew Wood, Shell Country chairman.

"By increasing the range of our activities and changing our name, we demonstrate to our stakeholders and the Omani people that we are fully committed to long-term sustainable development of Oman. With the new setup, we will continue to play our representation role, while contributing to the sustainable development of Oman. The relationship between Shell and the organisations and partners we work with will remain unchanged," he adds.

Oman Mobile, Americana in deal
Oman Mobile and Americana, an international company that holds the management rights to operate KFC, Hardees and Tikka restaurants, announced that they have joined hands. Dr Amer al Rowas, managing director of Oman Mobile and Mamdouh Shalaby, general manager of Americana, signed the agreement, which offers Americana up to 30 per cent discounts on the Nama Corporate Discount package on local calls, as well as 10 per cent discount of the total subscribers’ bill and corporate private network (CPN) business service, which offers unlimited free calls between the company’s staff with a monthly fixed subscription charge of RO2.990
per line.

Dar al Maha Phase II launched
Following the success of Phase I of Dar al Maha residential project on Darsait heights, Sohar International Development and Investment (SIDI) has announced the launch of Phase II comprising 202 units of freehold apartments.

Announcing the launch, Mahmood Mohammed al Jarwani, chairman of SIDI, says 40 per cent of the RO10mn project has already been sold out. "This is a 100 per cent freehold property for GCC nationals, while other expatriate buyers can lease the property for up to 99 years." To be built on an area of 7,455sqm, the five-storey building will comprise one, two and three-bedroom flats, multi-level car park, landscaped gardens, swimming pool and a children's day-care centre among other amenities. Anil Kumar, commercial manager of SIDI says the prices of the flats vary from RO47,000 for a one-bedroom unit to RO103,000 for a three-bedroom unit and the project will be completed in 24 months. "Loans are available from BankMuscat and Bank Dhofar," informs Jarwani.

Sayyarati car loans in 24 hours
BankMuscat has announced the launch of Sayyarati car loans. The procedure for procuring the car loan has been simplified to such an extent that after filling out necessary documents the car loan can be processed within 24 hours. The need for post-dated cheques has been eliminated, and the monthly instalments have been kept low with the interest rate being charged on a reducing balance. Customers can avail up to 80 per cent finance of the invoice value of the car. The maximum loan tenure offered is up to six years.

Al-Kay’s at COMEX
Al-Kay’s International, a company with a turnover of US$15mn, will participate in the COMEX Exhibition from April 28 to May 2, where it will showcase some of its latest IT solutions.
Al Kay’s recently entered into an exclusive tie-up with Screen-check, a Holland-based company. Screencheck is synonymous with smart card solutions like E-Campus, E-Loyalty and E-Cash. Screencheck has a successful track record in implementing the E-Campus solution all over the world including Al-Ain and Abu-Dhabi. According to company executives top Omani firms are also interested in implementing these solutions here.

Al Maha opens tile plant
Al Maha Ceramics, an associate company of Al Anwar Holdings, opened its manufacturing facility in Sohar recently. The plant was inaugurated by H H Shihab bin Tariq al Said, Advisor to His Majesty. Al Maha Ceramics is one of the largest producers of wall and floor tiles in Oman with a production capacity of up to 5mn sqm of tiles per annum.

Microsoft’s new products
Microsoft Oman has launched its next generation infrastructure and application platform products, including Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. These new enterprise products help customers more efficiently and securely manage their entire infrastructure and move to a virtualised environment.

Says Amith Krishnan, senior product manager, Microsoft, “The launch represents Microsoft’s long-standing commitment to our customers and partners in Oman. Microsoft’s new suite of enterprise products helps improve service levels at a lower cost and operate a flexible platform to meet changing business demands.”


In Person
Josef Wohrer, chairman and CEO of Austrian major, Salzburger Aluminium, says the US$12mn SAG Sohar, the first downstream plant to start operations in Sohar, is all set to supply bus bars to a slew of aluminium smelters coming up in the region. Excerpts from an interview:

What is your experience in setting up operations in Sohar?
It was quite challenging considering that we were investing so far away from home and dealing with totally new conditions. Nevertheless, we set up the plant in a record time of 123 days. It is unprecedented in our industry and many were surprised by our speed and even the local authorities found it difficult to match up to our speed.

Since Sohar Aluminium is yet to commence operations, where is SAG Sohar sourcing its metal from?
Currently we are sourcing aluminium from Alba in Bahrain, but that is only temporary until Sohar Aluminium starts operations by the middle of this year. We have a contract to source 25,000 tonnes per year of liquid aluminium from them. We have a capacity to produce 36,000 tonnes per year of bus bars, billets, ingots, and special alloy blocks. I've already spoken to Tony Kinsman of Sohar Aluminium to source more if the smelter goes ahead with its expansion plans and provided we get a parallel contract.

Who are your clients?
Bus bars are our speciality and all new smelters need it for their operations. Sohar Aluminium's capacity may be doubled; there are plants coming up in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. At the pace at which smelters are being built in the Middle East, output of aluminium will increase from about 2mn tonnes to 10mn tonnes in two years and it will become a major production hub. Our products are also targeted at smelters coming up in Malaysia, Indonesia and South Africa.

What are you views on duties imposed by the GCC countries?
Right now there is a three per cent barrier. SAG is in favour of doing away with the duties as it will make our exports more competitive and help us in transferring technology to Oman.

Does the SAG have any expansion programme in place?
Our turnover for 2007 stood at 360mn euros and we want to increase it to 500mn euros by 2011. For this purpose we have chalked out a strong expansion programme. We are negotiating with companies in Mexico and Turkey to set up joint ventures there. Big investments are also planned in Sweden and Netherlands to cover the demands of our key customers like Volvo and Scania. With Russia opening up and many of our customers moving there, we are compelled to follow them.

SAG is known for its innovation. How much does the group spend on R&D?
Our credo is: Innovation is very, very important. Our R&D spend currently stands at five per cent of turnover. We would like to push it up further.

Visitor view
Gerard Velter
Regional Managing Director, Middle East and Gulf Countries, Veolia Water
The Ministry of Education, in association with Oman Wastewater Services Company (OWSC) and Veolia Water, has launched Water Box, a unique educational project to teach children about conservation of water and act in an environmentally friendly manner. Gerard Velter, regional managing director, Middle East and Gulf Countries, Veolia Water, was present at the launch of this project. "The Water Box is a seed from which lots can grow. The experiments relate to the curriculum, sustainable living and issues facing Oman," says Velter. The project is to be implemented in ten schools in Muscat. Of the ten, seven will be Omani schools and others include British School, Indian School Muscat and American British Academy. The project expects to reach out to 10,000 students this year and will be expanded to 100 schools and 100,000 students the following year. The Water Box is a Veolia initiative developed ten years ago and more than 30,000 kits have been distributed worldwide. Oman is the first country in the Middle East to benefit from the project, with the worksheets and experiments translated in Arabic. The Water Box is a fun learning process for both students and teachers and seeks to make complex concepts simple.

Waldo Galan
Managing Director, Ford Middle East
Waldo Galan, managing director, Ford Middle East was in Muscat recently for the launch of the all-new Ford Mondeo. Galan underlined Ford’s remarkable success and popularity in the region. “The year 2007 has been a landmark year for us in the Middle East, with a reinvigorated line-up across the three brands – Ford, Lincoln and Mercury – active dealers and ongoing efforts in increasing customer satisfaction, all remarkable achievements that have fuelled our success story.” He also drew attention to the impressive strides that Ford has made on the product quality front. In the last six months, Ford has received numerous recognitions from institutions like JD Power & Associates, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Euro NCAP. Galan was all praise for the Saud Bawhan Group’s efforts in pushing Ford to the top of its segment in Oman. In appreciation of this remarkable achievement, Galan presented a special award for record sales in 2007 to the Saud Bahwan Group. Mohammed Saud Bahwan, president of the Saud Bahwan Group received the award.

Ved Jain
President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India
With the Indian budget generating so much excitement among the masses, it is only natural that a discussion on the topic would be equally stimulating. The budget talk organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) at the Indian embassy auditorium recently was well-received by a packed house. The key speaker, Ved Jain, president of ICAI, elucidated the finer points of the budget. "The budget can be termed as a relief oriented budget. It skillfully balances the need to step up economic growth on the one side and address the socio-economic needs of the nation. Consequently larger allocations have been given to several sectors like education and health to stimulate the growth of the economy and steps have been taken to address the problems faced by the farmers. The allocations and schemes for infrastructure development in all the sectors have been appropriately enhanced,"

corporate moves
David Murray Sims
CEO, NBO
Sims takes over as NBO chief executive officer on April 2. He has over 30 years of diverse experience encompassing corporate banking, retail banking and general management. Sims started off with Midland Bank in the UK in 1978, before moving to Standard Chartered Bank in 1985. He served the bank for 11 years in Brunei, South Africa, Bahrain and Oman. In 1996, he joined National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah and dedicated 12 years of his professional tenure with the bank. Sims is a British national and holds an MBA from Henley Management College, London.

Omar Al Alosi
Divisional Manager (Sales & Marketing), United Finance
Alosi, who has over 12 years of diverse experience encompassing credit analysis, credit control, remedial credit, and functional management took charge as divisional manager (sales and
marketing) of United Finance on March 1. An Iraqi national, he started his career in the financial industry with Baghdad Financial Service in Iraq in 1996 before moving to Oman in 1999. In 2003, he joined United Finance where he assumed positions of increasing responsibility. Alosi holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Mustansria University, Baghdad.

Peter Evans
Project Director, PRDnationwide MENA
Evans, a leading real estate expert, has rejoined PRDnationwide MENA in Oman as project director after a six-month hiatus where he continued his management duties in Australia. Evans has returned to Oman to develop the next phase of the Barr al Jissah Residences, having worked on the feasibility of the project three years ago. With 25 years of experience in the real estate industry, Evans brings a wealth of added knowledge and service to PRDnationwide MENA, having worked in the Sydney and Brisbane corporate offices.

Christopher De'Ath
GM and Head of Strategy and Planning, Bank Dhofar
De'Ath, an experienced business consultant, was formerly a consulting partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Middle East and Ernst and Young in Australia. He has over 25 years of experience in performance improvement and strategic change management consulting across a diverse range of industries. De'Ath holds an honours degree in behavioural science from the University of Canterbury in his native New Zealand, and has also completed post-graduate studies in Strategic Change Management at Harvard Business School in the US.

front runner
Hayyan Ali Malallah al Lawati, 27 Business Development Manager Al-Habib
It would be more than fair to call Al Lawati an experienced campaigner. He is a firm believer in long-term planning and forward thinking. Al Lawati has been honing his managerial skills since the age of 14 at various institutions like Oman International Bank, Oman Flour Mills, Arcapita Bank, Gulf International Chemicals and Merrill Lynch in San Diego while pursuing his degree in service sector management from California State University. "I've interned at these organisations which have helped me to get an idea of the roles and activities of various departments. At Merrill Lynch I wanted to learn something new, and that included dealing with Merrill clients." Since returning from the US, Al Lawati has been involved in improving and overhauling many of Al Habib’s activities, especially maintenance, and starting new ventures as well. "I'm working on improving our systems to deliver better service to our clients."