6 months ago
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India and Oman signed a escaped commercialized statement connected Thursday (December 18, 2025), which volition supply work escaped entree to 98% of India's exports including textiles, agriculture and leather goods successful Oman.
On the different hand, India volition trim tariffs connected Omani products specified arsenic dates, marbles and petrochemical items.
The woody is expected to travel into unit from the archetypal 4th of adjacent calendar year. The pact is coming astatine a clip erstwhile India is facing steep 50% tariffs successful its largest export destination, the U.S.
The statement was signed by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Oman's Minister of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion Qais bin Mohammed Al Yousef successful the beingness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi successful Muscat.
Oman has offered zero-duty entree connected implicit 98% of its tariff lines (or merchandise categories), covering 99.38% of India's exports to Oman.
All large labour-intensive sectors including gems and jewellery, textiles, leather, footwear, sports goods, plastics, furniture, cultivation products, engineering products, pharmaceuticals, aesculapian devices, and automobiles person afloat tariff elimination.
Out of these, contiguous tariff elimination is being offered connected 97.96% of merchandise categories.
On the different hand, India is offering tariff liberalization connected 77.79% of its full tariff lines (12,556) which covers 94.81% of India's imports from Oman by value.
For the products of export involvement to Oman and which are delicate to India, the connection is mostly a tariff-rate quota (TRQ) based tariff liberalization for items specified arsenic dates, marbles and petrochemical products.
To safeguard its interest, delicate products person been kept successful the exclusion class by India without offering immoderate concessions, particularly cultivation products, including dairy, tea, coffee, rubber, and baccy products; golden and metallic bullion, jewellery; different labour-intensive products specified arsenic footwear, sports goods; and scrap of galore basal metals.
At present, the labour-intensive goods successful Oman pull astir 5% import duty.
On the services assemblage front, Oman volition widen important commitments crossed a wide spectrum of sectors including machine related services, concern and nonrecreational services, audio-visual services, probe and development, acquisition and wellness services.
Oman's planetary services imports stood astatine $12.52 billion, with India's stock astatine lone 5.31%. It shows a important untapped imaginable for Indian work providers.
Further a large item of the CEPA is the enhanced mobility model for Indian professionals.
For the archetypal time, Oman has offered wide-ranging commitments nether Mode 4 (movement of skilled professionals), including a notable summation successful the quota for intra-corporate transferees from 20% to 50%, unneurotic with a longer permitted duration of enactment for contractual work suppliers - extended from the existing 90 days to 2 years, with the anticipation of a further two-year extension.
The statement besides provides for much wide introduction and enactment conditions for skilled professionals successful cardinal sectors specified arsenic accountancy, taxation, architecture, aesculapian and allied services, supporting deeper and much seamless nonrecreational engagement.
The pact besides provides for 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by Indian companies successful large services sectors successful Oman done commercialized presence, opening a wide avenue for India's services manufacture to grow operations successful the region.
In addition, some sides person agreed to clasp aboriginal discussions connected societal information pact erstwhile Oman's contributory societal information strategy is implemented, reflecting a forward-looking attack to facilitating labour mobility and idiosyncratic protection.
Oman is an important strategical spouse successful the portion and is simply a cardinal gateway for Indian goods and services to the wider Middle East and Africa.
Nearly 7 lakh Indian nationals reside successful Oman. India receives astir $2 cardinal remittances from Oman annually.
Indian enterprises person built a beardown beingness successful Oman, with implicit 6,000 Indian establishments operating crossed sectors. India has received $615.54 cardinal overseas nonstop concern from Oman during April 2000 and September 2025.
This is the 2nd commercialized pact signed successful the past six months aft the U.K. and is simply a portion of strategy to motion commercialized agreements with developed economies that are not competing with our labour-intensive interests and supply opportunities for Indian businesses.
This is besides the 2nd commercialized woody of India with a GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) member. India successful May 2022 implemented a akin pact with the UAE and it is expected to soon commencement talks with Qatar. The different members of the assembly are Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Talks for the escaped commercialized agreement, officially termed arsenic CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement), formally began successful November 2023 and the negotiations concluded this year.
In escaped commercialized agreements, the 2 trading partners either importantly trim oregon destruct customs duties connected a maximum fig of goods traded betwixt them. They besides easiness norms to beforehand commercialized successful services and pull investments.
This is the archetypal bilateral statement that Oman has signed with immoderate state since U.S. successful 2006. Oman is the third-largest export destination for India among the GCC countries.
India-Oman bilateral commercialized was astir $10.5 cardinal (exports $4 cardinal and imports $6.54 billion) successful 2024-25.
