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Muscat - Over 50 Omani exporters will attend a series of workshops in Muscat and Salalah organized by Ithraa, Oman's inward investment and export development agency, in partnership with the Geneva-based International Trade Centre (ITC).
Aimed at current and potential exporters as well as entrepreneurs, the two Ithraa-led workshops will be held 7 - 8 March in Muscat and 9 - 10 March in Salalah. Three ITC experts will deliver the two workshops.
As a joint agency of the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), ITC is the only multilateral organization dedicated to supporting the internationalization of SMEs and works to expand trade opportunities with the aim of fostering sustainable development.
ITC has a strong track record of connecting developing country businesses to global value chains, building sustainable market linkages and delivering positive development outcomes.
"We are delighted to partner with ITC and bring its international export expertise to Oman," said Mrs. Nasima Al Balushi, Ithraa's Director General of Export Development and organizer of the Muscat-Salalah workshop program. "Ithraa has been and continues to be an important partner for ITC, serving as a multiplier of ITC assistance in Oman", said Mr. Abdeslam Azuz, Senior Trade Promotion Officer at ITC.
A key challenge facing would-be Omani exporters, pointed out Mrs. Al Balushi, is the scarcity of reliable trade intelligence on developed and emerging markets. Exporters need to stay abreast of competitive conditions in their current markets, scan opportunities for new markets, as well as look for opportunities to diversify or value-add to their existing product range. At the same time, importers worldwide also seek to optimize the potential offered by preferential trade agreements and improve the efficiency of their sourcing by scanning for new and competitive supplier countries.
"ITC addresses these issues with its suite of user friendly market analysis tools that can help Omani exporters stay up-to-date with international trade trends, improve their selection of export markets and suppliers, research and analyze markets in-depth and grow their trade over time. Indeed, these are topics that will be covered by ITC personnel at the workshops we are holding in Muscat and Salalah this week," commented Ithraa's Director General for Export Development.
ITC's Market Analysis Tools are accessible to Omani companies; tools that will help them examine export and import statistics from over 220 countries and territories on 5,300 internationally traded products. "ITC remains available to offer other capacity building programs and further assistance in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the Omani SMEs and enforce the capacity of the Trade Support Institutions in Oman", mentioned the ITC representative.
"Access to this type of information is invaluable to Omani exporters," concluded Mrs. Al Balushi.
© Press Release 2016
