Muscat: Over 500 new commercial agencies were registered through Invest Easy portal last year, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI).

The Department of Agencies and Professional and Petroleum Licenses of MoCI said that these commercial agencies included 549 new agencies, 1,281 renewed agencies and 939 agencies of which registration is expired due to their non-renewal and the end of the period specified in the commercial agencies law number 26/77. The commercial agency service is being provided on the Invest Easy portal to make the process of registration of investors and follow up their transactions easy.

Yaqoub bin Shaykh bin Sulaiman Al-Dabouni, head of the Commercial Agencies Department at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said, “The commercial agency is protected according to the laws and regulations practised internationally and what is agreed upon in contracts between the foreign client and the local agent. As for the protection of the local agent, the commercial agencies law has abolished the subject of protection after the amendments made in 2014 and after issuing the Law of Protection of Competition and Prevention of Monopoly. The commercial agencies law 26/77 emphasises on the importance of the local agent under its article 9. It says that the agents must provide the customers with all required guarantees on all kinds of spare parts and post-sale service. Those who would not abide by this law would be punished under Article 19 of the Commercial Agencies Law.”

He said that the ministry of commerce and industry was currently contemplating to make certain amendments to the Commercial Agencies Law and its executive regulations in line with other laws. This is to provide a harmonized economic and business environment in the Sultanate of Oman and to create a competitive culture to ensure the flow of goods and products to the Sultanate.

Yaqoub Al-Dabouni indicated that the Commercial Agencies Department was currently planning some local seminars and symposiums to acquaint Sanad offices with the method of entering data on commercial agency contracts through “Invest Easy” portal. He said that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry wanted to overcome difficulties and improve the work in a way which is helpful for investors.

“It is extremely important to abide by the conditions of obtaining a commercial agency certificate. It requires that the commercial agency contract is free from any deletion, addition or amendment and is duly certified by the competent authority of the country and or by the Sultanate’s embassy, or have apostil stamp of the foreign minister of the client’s country. The contract of the commercial agency is also required to have the name, address and nationality of each of the client and the agent, and mentions the goods manufactured by the client on which there is a contract with the agency. It should also mention the international HS Code, its commercial name and trade mark if there is any. if the contract is from the supplier, he has to produce a copy of the agency’s contract between the supplier and the client. It should mention the lands of the Sultanate where it would be distributing its products, rights and obligations of each of the client and the agent, its duration, method of renewal (automatically or with the consent of both parties), the geographical limits, as well as what the provisions and elements wanted when entering into the contract,” said Al-Dabouni. He said that the contracts of exclusive commercial agencies did not comply with the provisions of the Law on Competition Protection and Prevention of Monopoly No. 67/2014.

Yaqoub Al-Dabouni said that the person who applies to obtain a license for a commercial agency through self-service must first ensure that the data was entered into the system correctly, before paying the fees. If the data will be entered wrongly, the investor would be responsible for rejection of the application and the fee, as the experts in the ministry of commerce and industry cannot change them. He said that the transaction through Sanad offices was the best way as the ministry has given them this authority.

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