Ministry of Commerce and Industry staff to work in malls as part of new experiment

Muscat: Minister of Commerce and Industry Dr. Ali bin Mas’oud Al Sunaidi announced that the ministry would do an important experiment on the occasion of blessed Renaissance Day, July 23.
A number of ministry’s employees will start working on July 25 in a number of Shopping Malls in Muscat, Al Buraimi, Salalah, Musandam, Sohar, Nizwa, Sur and A’Rustaq.
The success of this experiment would mean the ministry has technically and administratively exceeded the issue of providing its services from offices, which means that it will give up on the previous definition of the one-stop shop, he said.
He said that Invest Easy system is nearly complete and the ministry is proud of what has been accomplished with the efforts of its employees and international experts with a high levels of experience and with the cooperation of several government and private agencies.
The number of e-government services provided to investors; the business owners have reached 70 immediate and direct electronic self-services.
Thus, the ministry will exceed the number of services that have been already announced when signing the project’s agreement, which was estimated by 66 electronic services at that time.
The one stop shop will move gradually to a default location in the computers’ memory to provide the commercial register and other services via internet from any location and time.
He added that the ministry will focus in the next phase to invest in smart electronic services and training and will not need to expand the administrative offices and the parking, as some demanded earlier.
He emphasised, Invest Easy project is a national project that supports the Council of Ministers and managed during a simple period to put the Sultanate in the forefront of countries by winning UNCTAD award at the World Summit on the Information Society ITU for e-commerce category in Geneva earlier this year.
Thus, this project has achieved its most important goals, which are making investments registration and business transactions in the Sultanate easier and more transparency through an electronic window to serve all investors and business owners.
He added that Invest Easy has provided 70 services, the most important ones are the development of the commercial register, adding economic and other activities 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We hope in the next phase of the agreement with other government agencies to complete the electronic linkage and transfer the majority of services to self-service.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry further said, the system of Invest Easy has exceeded its basic objectives by providing instant data statistics that support the economic decision-making, in addition to its ability to measure the speed of transactions completion in the directorates and administrations of the ministry in all governorates and measuring the employees’ performance, which contributes to the re-distribution of work among employees.
Performance measurement reports have become available for the officials in the ministry through phone applications and tablets, the ministry has already made information that supports the environment of economic decision-making available on an urgent basis to several officials and other relevant business licenses ministries, which contributes to take precautionary decisions to prevent the misuse of licences and improve the business environment, stressing on the experts and specialists readiness to transfer this electronic platform with high efficiency to the ministries and other governmental bodies immediately.
With the success of the experiment on July 25, Dr. Al Sunaidi said that the ministry will be able to allow some of its employees in their own health conditions or during adversity climate changes to work from their homes to complete various transactions, according to mechanisms that take into account the minimum number of transactions to be accomplished in a day for each employee.
He explained, the users of e-services ratio reached 40 per cent of total services available, which is a good ratio. The ministry aims to reach 80% when the system is completed with association with all government entities, given that a number of government and private agencies provide Invest Easy services for investors, such as Sanad offices and law firms, free zones and offices of the Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development (Ithraa).
The number of new commercial registers that have been released through the Invest Easy portal in the past six months are about 19 thousand register while the fastest commercial register that has extracted electronically was in 145 seconds without any intervention from government employees.
Moreover, an industrial license has been issued within two hours of submission during this month, which is considered an achievement record for the Government, represented by the Royal Oman Police (ROP), Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, various municipalities, Information Technology Authority (ITA), Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) while the registers and licenses were completed in periods ranging from two weeks to four months.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry concluded by saying that the ministry’s staff who will work on July 25 from different locations outside the ministry’s offices are employees from government and private bodies, including staff from commercial banks and telecommunications companies who are working silently in the background offices, in association with Invest Easy Portal and they all deserve our thanks and appreciation.