Sunday 11 / January / 2026
Muscat: The Sultanate of Oman has launched the Eleventh Five-Year Development Plan (2026–2030), continuing its efforts to enhance economic, financial, and social stability, and advance towards a sustainable and prosperous future.
The plan builds on achievements from the first phase of “Oman 2040”, which strengthened financial sustainability, GDP growth, and diversification across key sectors.
The plan emphasises direct benefits to citizens, including the social protection system, increased social spending, enhanced support for food commodities and basic services, expanded healthcare and education infrastructure, and strategic projects in economic diversification, roads, and housing.
The eleventh plan follows three implementation tracks:
1. Time track – divides the plan into three work programmes.
2. Integrated track – combines outputs of technical teams with strategic programmes to allow policy flexibility and sustainable growth.
3. Planning track – links economic and social development, focusing on economic and developmental components aligned with Oman 2040 and Sustainable Development Goals.
The economic track promotes sustainable diversification, innovation, and financial stability, reducing reliance on oil and enhancing exports.
The development track focuses on completing infrastructure, improving household income, enhancing social services, decentralising governance, stimulating investment in governorates, promoting smart cities, improving transportation networks, digital transformation, transparency, and environmental sustainability.
Dr. Salem bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh, Ministry of Economy spokesperson, highlighted that the plan prioritises financial sustainability, economic diversification, job creation, social welfare, and service quality, while remaining flexible to future challenges and opportunities.
The plan targets three social goals:
• Enhancing decentralisation and balanced development in governorates.
• Raising labour market efficiency by supporting job seekers, encouraging entrepreneurship, linking education to market needs, and empowering national talent.
• Promoting sustainable social development by improving social services, empowering vulnerable groups, promoting national identity, advancing education and vocational training, and supporting youth, women, scientific research, innovation, and the sports and tourism sectors.
The eleventh plan includes 190 strategic programmes, covering education, health, social services, employment, business environment, work incentives, social protection, SME support, and national identity enhancement.
For 2026, social and basic sector spending rises from OMR5 billion in 2025 to OMR5.2 billion, representing 43% of total public spending. Key allocations include:Education: 40%, social security and welfare: 26%, health: 25. and housing: 9%
Support allocations include food commodities, social protection (OMR614 million), electricity (OMR509 million OMR), and employment programmes OMR(100 million annually), aiming to provide over 300,000 jobs for citizens during the plan.
Dr. Al-Sheikh noted that the first phase of Oman 2040 strengthened human development, enhanced spending on social aspects, and positioned Oman among countries with high human development, while effectively managing the pandemic’s social, health, and economic impacts.
Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Rashid Al Hashimi, Vice Chairman of the Shura Council’s Economic and Financial Committee, said the eleventh plan safeguards citizens from global economic fluctuations, maintains quality education and healthcare, supports basic commodities and utilities to keep inflation below 1%, and continues expanding the social protection and housing assistance programs.
The plan also targets the employment of approximately 300,000 job seekers, creating nearly 60,000 jobs annually, fostering stability for citizens and contributing to a knowledge-based economy leveraging Oman’s human capital.
