Oman Wanfang, a Chinese-owned company behind the development of the China-Oman Industrial Park in Duqm, plans to line up further investors having recently received commitments of $3 billion for projects in the park.

The company is eager to leverage Oman’s geographical proximity to markets in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, said a report.

Last week Oman Wanfang — which has a deal with the Duqm SEZ Authority (Sezad) to develop and manage a sprawling 1,172-hectare site at the zone — inked sub-usufruct agreements with 10 Chinese firms that have together pledged $3.062 billion in industrial, petrochemical, utility-based, manufacturing, hospitality, fabrication and other investments, added the Oman Daily Observer report.

“This represents the first phase of investor commitments,” said Ali Shah, CEO of Oman Wanfang.  

He added that the company hopes to have more such signings on a continual basis, although it may not do it on the scale. Going forward, the company aims to have agreement signings with individual investors.

Speaking to the Observer, Shah said last week’s agreement signings will signal the start of work on the infrastructure development of the industrial park.   

He said: “These 10 projects, which include a number of mega ventures, will require basic infrastructure before they can get started with their construction.”

“Once the infrastructure is in place, they will come here directly to start work on their individual projects. In the meanwhile, they will undertake the pre-construction planning, design and other groundwork. They will also work on registering their companies in Oman,” he added.

Meawhile, China’s Mingyuan Holdings Group Co Ltd that has made a proposal to set up a $2.3-billion-greenfield methanol project at the park, said the project completely depended on the sultanate’s commitment to supply natural gas as feedstock.

The Chinese petrochemical giant plans to produce 10 million tonnes of methanol, added the Times of Oman report.

Shupeng Ma, deputy general manager and senior economist of Mingyuan Holdings Group Co, said: “The natural gas is not finalised and the plan is still not concrete as such. Now, we are waiting for the government to give us a direction.”

Moreover, Mingyuan Holdings Group has to conduct an in-depth feasibility study to find the market demand, which is expected to take more than six months, added the report.