Oman’s growing space sector attracts $52m in investments

Thomson Reuters/Nasa

Oman has attracted investments worth OMR20 million ($52 million) in its growing space sector over the past two years, a senior government official said.

The investments have increased after the issuance of the executive space programme last year, Dr. Ali Al Shidhani, under-secretary of communications and IT at the ministry of transport, communications, and information technology, told the Oman Daily Observer news outlet.

Among the companies with bases in the sultanate are Etco, the developer of Oman’s first satellite, Aman-1; Nascom, which is building the first spaceport in the Mean region in Duqm; and SatMena, Lebanon’s satellite and fiber optics service provider.

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The ministry is also working on five to six space projects out of a total of 14 planned, including a space cloud partnership, a space accelerator, a public satellite and a global space conference.

Euroconsult’s white paper in January estimated that the value of the Middle East space sector is expected to hit $75 billion by 2032, with spending forecast to increase by 92 percent over the next decade.

The region’s space economy has trebled in 10 years to reach an estimated $25 billion in 2023, the report said.