Oman’s burgeoning space sector has seen a significant influx of investments, totaling OMR20 million ($52 million) over the past two years, according to a high-ranking government official.
Dr. Ali Al Shidhani, Under-Secretary of Communications and IT at the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technology, attributed this growth to the issuance of the executive space programme last year. He shared these insights with the Oman Daily Observer.
Several prominent companies have established bases in the country, including Etco, the developer of Oman’s inaugural satellite, Aman-1; Nascom, which is constructing the first spaceport in the Middle East region in Duqm; and SatMena, a leading satellite and fiber optics service provider based in Lebanon.
The Ministry is actively involved in five to six space projects out of a planned total of 14, encompassing initiatives such as a space cloud partnership, a space accelerator, a public satellite, and a global space conference.
A recent white paper by Euroconsult projected that the Middle East’s space sector could reach a value of $75 billion by 2032, with an anticipated 92 percent increase in spending over the next decade. The region’s space economy has already tripled over the past decade, reaching an estimated $25 billion in 2023, as per the report.
