Oman buys time with foreign loans as fiscal downturn bites

The business community is concerned about a slowdown in orders, late payments and non-performing loans; analysts are pessimistic about the macroeconomic outlook, in an economy still heavily dependent on hydrocarbons revenues that seems to have suffered more than its GCC partners from the slump in oil and gas prices. National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI) data, issued by Oman News Agency on 30 January, recorded a 14.2% year-on-year decline in gross domestic product (GDP) – to OR20.09bn ($52.2bn) at market prices – in January-September 2015.