The International Monetary Fund Executive Board concluded the 2025 Article IV consultation with the Sultanate of Oman, alongside discussion of the findings from the 2025 Financial Sector Assessment Program exercise. Directors assessed Oman’s economy as resilient with a broadly favorable outlook despite lower oil prices and elevated uncertainty, while emphasizing the need to sustain prudent policies and continue reforms under Oman Vision 2040. Economic growth was 1.6 percent in 2024 and 2.3 percent year on year in the first half of 2025, with nonhydrocarbon growth at 3.5 percent over the same period and inflation edging up to 0.9 percent during January to October 2025. The overall fiscal balance was estimated at a surplus of 0.7 percent of GDP in 2025 and government debt stood at 36.1 percent of GDP by September 2025, while the current account balance was estimated to have shifted to a deficit of 1.1 percent of GDP in 2025. Directors backed the exchange rate peg as an appropriate anchor and urged further tax policy and administration reforms, phasing out untargeted subsidies with protection for vulnerable groups, and stronger fiscal frameworks including developing a fiscal rule, improving public investment management, and strengthening debt management and sovereign asset-liability management. They also stressed implementing a Treasury Single Account and transitioning to active liquidity management to strengthen monetary policy transmission, while keeping the Central Bank of Oman’s expanded development mandate anchored in price and financial stability. The FSAP found the financial sector resilient against severe shocks, with banks described as sound and supported by ample capital and liquidity buffers and robust profitability. Directors called for operationalizing a macroprudential strategy, enhancing supervision and regulation, improving AML/CFT frameworks, and further strengthening the financial safety net and crisis management arrangements, alongside deepening capital markets and addressing structural impediments to small and medium-sized enterprise financing.
International Monetary Fund 2026-01-15
IMF Executive Board concludes Oman Article IV consultation and calls for a fiscal rule and macroprudential strategy
The IMF Executive Board concluded the 2025 Article IV consultation with Oman, noting the economy's resilience and favorable outlook despite lower oil prices, while emphasizing the need for continued reforms under Oman Vision 2040. The FSAP found the financial sector resilient, with directors recommending enhancements in macroprudential strategy, supervision, regulation, and financial safety nets.