Majlis to discuss economic impact of fuel prices

By Zainab Al Nasseri — MUSCAT: Feb. 6 - The Majlis Ash’shura will discuss on Wednesday the recommendations of its committee on ‘Addressing Implications of Economic Crisis and its Impact on the Community’ vis-à-vis fuel pricing. The council will discuss recommendations and executable solutions made by members of the committee on fuel pricing for the current month, and the resulting public discontent as well as the impact on some sections of the society. The panel, which held a meeting under the chairmanship of Shaikh Jamal bin Ahmed al Abri, Head of the Committee, emphasised the fuel price impact on citizens, including university and college students, consumers and employees. Besides discussing a mechanism for determining the oil price and its repercussions on the national economy, it also discussed ways to support some sections of society, including low income groups, students and others. The committee is also looking on several recommendations to help social security families in the Sultanate in view of the recent fuel price hike. Meanwhile, the Economic and Financial Committee at Majlis Ash’shura hosted officials from DG of Customs and DG of Passport at the Royal Oman Police (ROP) to discuss Customs’ procedures at ports and free zones. Providing remittances would be the first step and for this we have the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) approval.” Al Balushi said that the company wants to excel in innovative payment tools and methods, which today still revolves around credit or debit card transactions. “Remittances are only the start and we are studying other areas and markets in financial services.” On the much talked about e-commerce project, he said its success will largely depend on Internet penetration, logistics, alternative payment methods availability and postal efficiency. Oman Post’s efficiency has to improve and apart from the current 82 branches, plans are to have more touch points to be either managed or owned by the third parties. “For this we are working on the framework and the operating model.” E-commerce should be enhanced and Oman Post to play a major role as well as other private sector entities “We need not do things alone, there can be partnership with private parties, including revenue sharing or capacity sharing agreements. “There is enough scope to work as a facilitator with the private sector in areas of delivery, fulfilment, and technology.” There are plans to have 11 distribution centres across the Sultanate to cater to the orders from their areas. “We need to improve the last mile delivery for e-commerce. For this we need a system to know where exactly the customer is and reach him or her.” He admitted that the Post’s potential is greater than what it is today. Post Boxes: He said the fares for post boxes were untouched for years and they were doubled all of sudden last year. “We should have done it gradually and in the future we need to do that way to accommodate for inflation.” Currently over 30 million letters and 600,000 of parcels are handled but lack of automation it is a big challenge. Fresh plans to introduce more innovative products and services are in place and facilities to cooperate entities for pick-up and delivery of mail are being rolled out in 2017.