Oman is set to recieve $500mn in aid from the UAE in 2013.
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The UAE will channel $500mn this year into development projects in Oman, it has announced.
The funds are part of a $2.5bn pledge of aid by members of the GCC, to neighbouring countries that would benefit from them. The likes of Bahrain and Oman were mooted recipients of the aid packages.
“The UAE government will pump $0.5bn this year through the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development,” said Mohammed Al Swaidi, chief of the fund.
The funds will be part of a UAE grant of $2.5bn, that is the UAE’s contribution to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) programme launched in 2011. Darwish bin Ismail Al Balushi, the Omani minister responsible for financial affairs, last week met with Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, the UAE’s minister of state for financial affairs.
They discussed ways to boost ties between financial institutions in the two countries, and the mechanism and timeframe of the UAE government’s contribution to the GCC Development Programme to finance development projects in the Sultanate.
The six GCC states decided at a meeting in March 2011 to establish a $20bn fund to finance development projects in Bahrain and Oman, which have relatively less energy resources compared to its GCC counterparts.
Al Balushi has said that the $10bn fund pledged by the GCC bloc would be partly utilised for an ambitious railway project, along with other infrastructure schemes across the country.