Category: Law Updates

The Social Protection Fund (SPF) issued a decision today Determining the Average Wage Growth for 2024, which is set at 3%.

The Tender Board published in today’s issue of the Official Gazette a brand new Regulation Governing Local Content that requires government entities subject to the Tender Law to impose local content requirements for any contract with a value exceeding 500,000 Rial Omani. The aim of this new regulation is to develop national human resources and to support local products and small and medium enterprises.

The Environment Authority published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette a new decision Amending Some Provisions of the Regulation Governing Environmental Permits. The original regulation was issued in August of this year, and this is the first amendment to be made to it.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning (MHUP) published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette a new Governance Regulation of Land Planning Controls that replaces the Governance Regulation of Land Planning Controls of 2013. This was done to comply with the requirements of the new Oman National Spatial Strategy.

The Tender Board published in today’s issue of the Official Gazette a brand new Regulation Governing Government Projects that formally adopts the quality gate approach for managing projects carried out by entities subject to the provisions of the Tender Law.

The Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette a new Working System of Oman Commercial Arbitration Centre (OAC) that replaces the Working System of OAC of 2019.

The Tax Authority (TA) published in this week’s Official Gazette Ministerial Decision 521/2023 Amending Some Provisions of the Executive Regulation of the Value Added Tax Law. This decision adds a new article 196bis, which provides for new additional cases in which VAT can be refunded that are set out in the schedule attached to the decision.

Oman’s first ever Public Debt Law was promulgated last week and was made available to the public in the Official Gazette today. This new law mostly provides a general governance framework of how the government plans to make decisions regarding the management of public debt and introduces a limited set of actual controls on government debt.

The full-text of the new Tourism Law was published in the Official Gazette today replacing the old Tourism Law of 2002. The new law simplifies the legal framework for tourism by abolishing the National Tourism Committee as well as the Tourism Development Fund, consolidates the various concepts for tourism offices and tour guides into tourism activities, removes references to the timeshare system, and increases the value of the fines that can be imposed against those who violate the law.

The Ministry of Heritage and Tourism (MOHT) published in this week’s Official Gazette Ministerial Decision 1152/1/2/255/2023 Amending Some Provisions of the Executive Regulation of the Tourism Law. This decision amends article 117 of the regulation concerning tourism fee fines.