Oman’s SOHAR Port joins FICCI to offer insights to metal industry

January 21, 2022: Oman’s SOHAR Port and Freezone with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), initiates the third of the five-part webinar series titled Forging Ahead in Metals to Maximize Your Market Reach.

The third session will be held on January 25th, 2022, to offer Indian Metal producers some insights into SOHAR Port and Freezone’s strategic advantages, opportunities in downstream metal operations, and industrial success stories from Indian companies who have chosen SOHAR.

The third part of the webinar series will cover the following topics:

SOHAR’s Strategic Advantages by Robert Bartstra (commercial manager, SOHAR Port and Freezone)
Harness the Opportunities in SOHAR by Mohammed Al Kindi (commercial officer, SOHAR Freezone)
Logistic Solutions by Martin Ouwerkerk (head of commercial department, C. Steinweg, Oman LLC)

The panel discussions will revolve around Metals in SOHAR and their industrial solutions. It will also feature renowned names from the industry such as:

Anindya Das (financial controller, Al Tamman Indsil Ferrochrome LLC), Jason Moodley (supply chain management manager, Sohar Aluminium) and Sunil Kumar (chief management officer, Jindal Shadeed Iron & Steel LLC)

The session will highlight SOHAR’s cluster development approach and how over 50 percent of SOHAR industrial tenants are primary and secondary metal projects and/or downstream activities that have found their way to SOHAR, enticed by the mutual benefits that add value to their operations. The webinar will talk about Reliable and affordable energy including solar, anchor businesses for access to raw materials, on-site consumers of metals and mature port infrastructure amongst other offerings that SOHAR provides.

India is among Oman’s top trading partners. With exports value of $2,261.81 million, Oman was India’s 35th largest export market for the FY 2019-20. Traditionally, India and Oman have enjoyed a healthy and flourishing food trade of rice and traditional export items like tea, coffee, spices, dairy produce, articles of apparel, meat and more.

Indian shareholders also own the highest percentage of General Trading License (GTL) than any one country with core GTL sectors being metals, polymers and textiles. From the total industrial investments in the freezone, 35% are by Indian investors with 50% investments from the metals cluster.

Omar Al Mahrizi, SOHAR Port and Freezone’s deputy chief executive officer (CEO) and SOHAR Freezone CEO, highlights, “We are looking forward to yet another part of the insightful series. We are honored to collaborate with an apex business organization like FICCI through which we can explore opportunities for India and Oman. We are certain that the series will provide metal businesses in India the opportunity to recognize the offerings and advantages of SOHAR’s solutions and reach. The webinar will capture the details on the SOHAR advantage and how global industry leaders such as Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, Vale and Al Tamman Indsil have chosen to utilize the value propositions of SOHAR Port and Freezone. We are looking forward to share our ability and knowledge through this initiative and hope it will be a success.”

The five-part webinar series includes topics on various sectors such as food, automotive, plastics and metals sectors.