Times of Oman - May 10, 2016

Founded 1975 . Volume 41 No. | Pages . Baisas 200 . Subscription OMR63 | ISO 9001:2008 Certifi ed Company | Chairman/Editor-in-Chief: Mohamed Issa Al Zadjali | Printed & Published by Muscat Media Group

085010 1200106May 10, 2016 3 Sha’aban 1437 AH

TUESDAY

67 40

FROM THE WORDS OF HIS MAJESTYTHE SULTAN

We are taking steps to Omanise the school syllabi and expand educational services at the diff erent levels, particularly primary, and provide preparatory and secondary schools at the main centres of population in the educational regions.

‘His Majesty’s Wisdom’

To the People, 1975

MORNING MINUTE

HM sends cables of condolences

MUSCAT: His Majesty Sul-tan Qaboos bin Said has sent two cables of condolences to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Ab-dulaziz Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on the death of Princess Sama bint Saud bin Faisal bin Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Princess Turfa bint Saud bin Abdulrah-man Al Faisal Al Saud.

In his cables, His Majesty the Sultan expressed his sin-cere condolences and sympa-thy to King Salman, praying to Allah the Almighty to rest the deceased’s souls in peace and grant their family patience. -ONA

S A U D I A R A B I A

‘MUST REMAIN UNTIL ECONOMY IMPROVES’

NOCBABA [email protected]

MUSCAT: Oman’s two-year em-ployment ban for expatriates who leave their jobs without a No Ob-jection Certifi cate (NOC) should

remain in place at least until the economic condition of the Sultan-ate improves, trade unions and government offi cials insist.

That’s despite some bosses com-plaining the policy is leading to a brain drain within the existing ex-pat workforce and making others think twice about coming to work in Oman.

Said Salem Al Saadi, the advisor to the Minister of Manpower, told the Times of Oman, “The compa-nies bring people, train them and somebody just leaves the company because he is off ered better salary elsewhere. It [the rule] protects companies. >A6

Rule needed as 1000s of Omanis are looking for jobs: OCCI offi cial

Trade union offi cials and Ministry of Manpower say rule is here to stay

Described as ‘hard’ and ‘necessary’ but some bosses aren’t happy

MARKETVenture capital company launched

2Oman’s fi rst equity-based venture capital fi rm, Innovation

Development Oman Holding, was launched on Monday. State General Reserve Fund, Oman Oil Company, The Research Council and Omantel joined hands to establish the fi rm. >B1

SPORTSInjured Amir out, Noorul Riaz in

3Oman’s star of the ICC World T20 Tournament Amir Ali will be missed

as the national cricket team embarks on a mission to climb up the ladder in the WCL. Oman led by skipper Ajay Lalcheta will be participating in the WCL Division 5 to be held in Jersey from May 21 to 28. >C1

OMANVideo of expatriate helping elderly viral

1A video showing an expat helping an elderly woman has gone viral in Oman.

With more than 11,000 views on YouTube in the less than a month, the video has become popular on social media. The two-minute video directed by the volunteer group ‘fahaddath’, features Ameena Abdul Rasul, an actress of the Sultanate. >A4

T O P T H R E E I N S I D E S T O R I E S

A4Star gazers gather for rare celestial event

‘Room for changes in labour law’ERIK [email protected]

MUSCAT: There is room for improvement under the current labour law, a Shura member said.

“As time changes, we need to change. Always there is room for improvement,” said Mohammed Al Busaidi, a Shura member.

The Shura offi cial was talking on the sidelines of a seminar or-

ganised by the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI) on labour law on Monday.

The seminar was organised to discuss the current law and for considering the recommenda-tions from human resource and labour department offi cials.

Busaidi is the head of the Youth and Human Resources Commit-tee in the Shura.

The seminar was organised by

the Human Resources and La-bour Market Committee at OCCI.

“The seminar aims to review the labour law, create awareness among stakeholders and to iden-tify the defi ciencies as the govern-ment is reviewing and working on a new law,” the offi cial added. The forum was held under the auspic-es of Hamad bin Khamis al Amri, undersecretary for Labour Aff airs at the Ministry of Manpower.

O C C I M E T I N G

Sultanate’s top golfer has game in his genesDEEBA [email protected]

MUSCAT: In a nation where a sport like golf does not have as much awareness as perhaps foot-ball, Azaan Al Rumhy has grown as a silent star. Al Rumhy has played across several golf courses in the region and beyond since 1998, and won the Muscat Open Golf Championship a few years later, at the age of 19.

This young man has been play-ing golf ever since he was in his early teens; it is a passion he in-herited from his father, who also loves the sport. Al Rumhy is often dubbed as Oman’s top golfer, not

just due to his performance at the golf course, but also because of his dedication and commitment to-wards the game. He practices for at least 15 hours per week and wants to be able to practice a lot more.

“I was 14 years old when I fi rst started playing golf, and I got this

from my father, who had been playing for several years before. Just seeing him play inspired me to try,” said a smiling Al Rumhy, who has been pursuing golf for al-most two decades now.

When it comes to inspiration, apart from his father, Al Rumhy looks up to Tiger Woods for mo-tivation. It was because of Woods that Al Rumhy actually became obsessed with the sport.

“Back in 1997 when I used to watch Woods, he was quite young and that is when I realised that golf is not just for the old people or for a select few, and from that moment I knew that I wanted to really pur-sue it with determination.”>A6

I N S P I R E D B Y F A T H E R

REJIMON K [email protected]

MUSCAT: An exhibition centre, a 22,396 square metre (sqm) exhibi-tion hall, 10 hospitality suites, Hall One, and a 12,000 sqm outdoor ex-hibition space will be opened during Phase 1 of Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre (OCEC) on Au-gust 15 this year, a top offi cial said.

“The centrepiece of the Phase 1 is the exhibition hall that can be divided into fi ve separate halls,” Trevor McCartney, general man-ager of the OCEC, told the Times of Oman.

“Supported by a dedicated full production kitchen, Hall One can be used for a range of prestigious events, including conferences, ex-

hibitions, banquets, graduations and weddings,” McCartney added.

In the 10 hospitality suites, which will be located on the third level of the exhibition centre, 196 delegates can be seated in theatre style or lower numbers for small-er board meetings or corporate gatherings.

Owned and developed by Om-ran, the government arm for tour-ism development in Oman, when completed, OCEC is expected to be the centrepiece of Oman’s busi-ness development programme for establishing the Sultanate as a ma-jor regional venue for regional and international events.

According to McCartney, the convention centre is scheduled to open doors to Phase 2 in December

2017. “In Phase 2, the OCEC’s in-spirational 3,200-seat lyric-style theatre will be opened. Set over three levels, it has advanced pro-jection, a sound system and rigging capabilities.

“An adaptable venue, the theatre can scale down to accommodate 1,000 guests, using the lower tier,” the he added.

McCartney said the OCEC will also have an elegant 450-seat au-ditorium and a range of additional meeting rooms.

“Phase 2 will see the inaugura-tion of the Grand and Junior Ball-rooms, with the fi rst equipped to accommodate 2,688 delegates in theatre style, 1,680 people in class-room style or a lavish banquet set-ting for 1,200 guests,” he stated.

O M R A N

PASSIONATE PLAYER: Azaan Al Rumhy is Oman’s top golfer.

CENTREPIECE: OCEC is expected to be the centrepiece of Oman’s business development programme

for establishing country as a major regional venue for regional and international events. -File photo

Oman convention centre’s Phase 1 opens on August 15

A2 T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

OMAN

Oman Air cuts flights to three countries

REJIMON [email protected]

MUSCAT: Oman Air, the nation-al airline of Oman, has cancelled a few fl ights scheduled for between May 9 and 31 to Tanzania, Bahrain and India, the airline tweeted on its offi cial Twitter handle.

According to the tweets, on all Sundays and Saturdays, between May 9 and 31, Flight WY275/6 Muscat-Jaipur-Muscat, stands cancelled and booked passengers

have been transferred to Flight WY271/2. “Passengers scheduled to travel on Saturdays to Jaipur will be transferred to WY275/6 with an advance departure time,” the airline tweeted.

The airline has also cancelled its Flight WY207/8 Muscat-Goa-Muscat on all Mondays, between May 9 and 31. Dar-es-Salaam-Zanzibar-Muscat fl ights on all Thursdays, between May 9 and 31 have also been cancelled.

According to the airline, fl ights to Bahrain on Wednesdays be-

tween May 9 and 31 also stand cancelled.

“On all Wednesdays, WY655/6 Muscat-Bahrain-Muscat stands cancelled and will be combined with WY663/4 to operate Mus-cat-Doha-Bahrain-Muscat,” the airline tweeted.

In addition to this, the airline tweeted that on all Mondays, Flight WY655/6 Muscat-Bah-rain-Muscat stands cancelled and will be combined with Flight WY663/4 to operate on the Mus-cat-Doha-Bahrain-Muscat route.

The airline added that on all Wednesdays, between May 9 and 31, Flight WY717 Muscat- Dar-es-Salaam fl ight will be cancelled and passengers are being re-booked on Flight WY705, whose departure time is 08:40 local time.

On all Tuesdays, between May 9 and 31, Flight WY705/6 to Za-nizbar and Dar-Es-Salaam also stands cancelled.

Earlier, between May 2 and 7, the airline had cancelled some fl ights to India, Tanzania and Bahrain.

A few fl ights to

Tanzania, Bahrain

and India scheduled

for May 9 to May 31

have been cancelled

IndiGo to launch Muscat-Kochi fl ightTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Low-cost Indian car-rier, IndiGo, will start direct daily fl ights from Muscat to Kochi from June 21.

Currently, IndiGo operates seven fl ights a week to Mumbai from Muscat.

Commenting on the new fl ight schedule, Aditya Ghosh, president, IndiGo said, “It gives me great pleasure in announcing this new service on our interna-tional network, connecting Mus-cat to Kochi.

“We are confi dent that this new service will prove immensely popular with our customers. With

the increased fl ow of tourists and business traffi c, we are pleased to provide direct and daily connec-tions to meet the requirements of our customers.

“It is our constant endeavour to provide more fl exibility of choice for our customers as IndiGo con-tinues to off er them on-time, hassle-free and an always aff ord-

able fl ying experience.”The fl ight will leave Muscat

at 10 pm and will reach Kochi at 3.05 am and will leave from Kochi at 6.55 pm and will reach Muscat at 9 pm.

The all inclusive lowest one-way fare from Muscat to Kochi will be OMR41.20 and from Kochi to Muscat will be OMR34.60.

With 767 daily fl ights connect-ing 40 destinations, these new fl ights will allow corporate and leisure travellers to experience the matchless on-time perfor-mance IndiGo is synonymous with, thus further consolidating IndiGo’s position as the fastest growing airline in India.

A V I A T I O N

The flight will leave Muscat

at 10pm and will reach Kochi

at 3.05am and will leave

from Kochi at 6.55pm and

will reach Muscat at 9pm

Vietnamese food fl avour in MuscatTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Asian food lovers in Muscat can look forward to en-joying authentic Vietnamese food from today.

The Shangri-La Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa will welcome spe-cial guest chefs from the Shangri-La Hotel, Abu Dhabi and the Shangri-La Hotel, Dubai to show-case their culinary expertise and share their authentic Vietnamese experience till May 21 at the Asia restaurant.

Guest Chef Vu Van Dang from the Shangri-La Qaryat Al Beri, Abu Dhabi’s acclaimed Hoi An res-taurant, will present a delectable menu of Vietnamese specialities to Asian food lovers in Muscat.

Chef Dang has a remarkable 18 years of culinary experience at various leading fi ve-star ho-tels and resorts in Hanoi and the United Arab Emirates. Specialis-ing in South East Asian cuisine, Chef Dang will tantalise the din-ers’ palate with unique fl avours of Vietnamese dishes. Guests are in-vited to enjoy authentic delicacies, such as Saigon beef salad, Hoi An crispy seafood rolls, steamed sea bass wrapped in banana leaves and many more.

Chef Dang will also be assisted by Chef Vu Van Duy from the Hoi An restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel, Dubai for the duration of the promotion.

Vietnamese cuisine is reputed for its lively taste and for its use of fi sh sauce, rice and fresh veg-etables. Vietnamese recipes are distinctively infused with a di-verse range of herbs, including lemongrass, mint, coriander and basil leaves.

Like most Asian cuisine, Viet-namese cooking is based on the use of traditional ingredients and involves numerous cooking meth-ods, including steaming, boiling and deep frying.

Vietnamese culinary traditions refl ect the country’s historic Chi-nese and French infl uences in ad-

dition to featuring distinctive re-gional characteristics.

Dishes from the south include a wide variety of fresh seafood, while those hailing from the colder Northern areas include slightly heartier meals with beef.

The Asia restaurant will be open daily from 5:00 pm to 11:00 pm during the Vietnamese promo-tion. For more information or to book a table, please call the res-taurant reservations team at (968) 2477 6565 or email fb [email protected].

S H A N G R I - L A B A R R A L J I S S A H

Chef Dang has a remarkable

18 years of culinary

experience at various

leading five-star hotels

and resorts in Hanoi and

the United Arab Emirates,

specialising in South

East Asian cuisine

It is our constant endeavour to provide more fl exibility of choice for our customers as IndiGo continues to off er them on-time, hassle-free and an always aff ordable fl ying experience

Aditya Ghosh, president, IndiGo

A3

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Dip in oil prices hits Omanis’ travel plans

REJIMON K [email protected]

MUSCAT: A dip in oil prices is forcing Omanis to put off their international travel plans, accord-ing to travel agents in Oman.

While a travel agent says the industry is experiencing a decline of 8 to 10 per cent in international travel bookings and enquiries, an-other said that the drop is expect-ed to range from 10 to 15 per cent.

“Compared to previous years, we have seen a slight dip on the en-quiry front. Probably, it is early to comment on this and we may see improvements in coming days,” Santhosh Kanakandath, manag-ing director at Assaraya Travel and Tourism, told Times of Oman.

According to Santhosh, who has been a travel agent in Oman for the last 30 years, the economic down-turn has forced Omanis to seek out less expensive travel destinations.

“People are looking for cheaper destinations, mainly towards East European destinations, which currently off er excellent prices,” Santhosh said, while adding that

Omani tourism companies, like others in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, are wit-nessing a slowdown in domestic tourism, as well.

“Mainly, Omanis opt for Far East countries and Central Euro-pean destinations. East European countries are also fast catching up, with Georgia, Czech Republic and Slovakia being the prime lo-cations,” Santhosh said.

Meanwhile, Raji Demonte, gen-eral manager at Universal Travel and Tourism Oman, said there has been a drop of 10 to 15 per cent in bookings and enquiries in inter-national tourism.

“However, it is not that big, be-cause Omanis still prefer to travel outside for honeymoons. Out-bound travel for honeymoons has not fallen, even during this tough time. This may be the reason that

the dip is not that high,” Raji added.According to latest statistics,

Oman saw an increase in inter-national visits between 2005 and 2014, from over 2.49 million to 4.72 million visitors, however, the report adds that while an out-bound tourist spent, on average, OMR115.4 in 2005, the amount declined to OMR87.7 by 2014.

Outbound marketInternational travel from the Middle East, according to United Nations World Tourism Organi-zation’s (UNWTO) 2015 Tourism Highlights, numbered approxi-mately 37 million people for 2014 and accounted for 3.3 per cent of the global outbound market.

A study conducted by Frost and Sullivan and Insights Middle East for Amadeus in 2014, estimated the total value of outbound travel-

lers from the GCC at $64 billion.Meanwhile, the World Travel

and Tourism Council (WTTC) said, in its latest report, that Oman is the fastest growing tour-ism destination in the Middle East when it comes to the total contribution of the travel and tourism sector to its Gross Do-mestic Product (GDP).

While the total contribution of the sector was 5.7 per cent of Oman’s total GDP, at OMR 1,593.8 million in 2015, this is expected to grow by 6 per cent in 2016.

At an expected growth rate of 6 per cent, Oman stands at the top, while Qatar and Kuwait follow with 5.9 and 5.6 per cent of expect-ed growth, respectively. Addition-ally, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) comes in at sixth place, with an expected growth rate of 4.4 per cent.

While a travel agent

says the industry

is experiencing a

decline of 8 to 10 per

cent in international

travel bookings and

enquiries, another

said that the drop is

expected to range

from 10 to 15 per cent

OMR 115.4

87.7

5.7 6.0

Source: WTTC, Travel Agencies Graphics

Tourism destination as % GDPGrowth rates in Middle East (%)

Expected growthin Oman

20042016 2015

2015 2016 Oman

Qatar

Kuwait

UAE

OUTBOUND DIPTravel agencies have experienced a decline on the enquiry front, to outbound tourism plans.

6.0

5.9

5.6

4.4

Travel bookingsand enquiries

Travelersexpenses

10-15%

TOURISM TRENDS: Oman saw an increase in international visits

between 2005 and 2014, from over 2.49 million to 4.72 million

visitors. – File photo use for illustrative purposes only

Rain in parts of OmanTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Rain fell in parts of Oman. Weather forecasters had earlier predicted rain in coastal ar-eas of Dhofar on Monday.

In its fresh advisory, the Public Authority for Civil Aviation stat-ed that high level clouds are ap-

proaching northern and western parts of Oman, which may bring rainfall in some parts of Oman.

The sea conditions are likely to be moderate to rough along the Arabian Sea coast with maximum wave height of 2.5 meters. The advisory also said visibility will be moderate during fog and rain.

W E A T H E R

– Courtesy Bader Ali Al Baddaei / www.rthmc.net.

A4 T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

OMAN

MHC completes maintenance of Al Mughabash CastleTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Ministry of Herit-age and Culture (MHC) recently completed maintenance work on the boundary wall of the Al Mughabash Castle in Suwaiq in the North Batinah Governorate. The castle is located on the main road leading to Sohar.

Electricity has been restored at the castle and the building will be fully restored soon too, according to an offi cial.

Total maintenance work cost OMR47,000, which included civil work and electrical work, among others.

MHC also plans to restore the Rustaq Fort, after a portion of one of its walls collapsed due to the re-cent rains. The ministry has also announced partial renovation of the Bahla Souq.

N O R T H B A T I N A H

TARGET MET: The project was implemented by the Hazon Trading and Contracting Company, and took about eight months to complete.

Video of expatriate helping elderly woman goes viralHASAN SHABAN AL [email protected]

MUSCAT: A video showing an ex-patriate worker helping an elderly woman has gone viral in Oman.

With more than 11,000 views on YouTube in the less than a month, the video has become popular on social media.

The two-minute video directed by the volunteer group ‘fahaddath’, features Ameena Abdul Rasul, one the most iconic actresses in the Sultanate.

The video shows an elderly Om-ani woman who is unable to walk, complaining to an expatriate work-er about her disability. The worker then helps her out by bringing a wheelchair to assist her and takes her for a stroll in a garden.

The ‘fahaddath’ initiative aims to provide help to the needy and

people who have been ignored by the mainstream media, according to Shaker Al Raisi, a member of the group. The voluntary group was created on July 1, 2015 and has only fi ve members.

However, after an intensive so-

cial media campaign, more than 100 people of diff erent nationali-ties and cultures joined the group within two weeks of its launch.

The word “fahaddath” means “to express” and is taken from a verse in the Holy Quran.

V O L U N T E E R G R O U P ‘ F A H A D D A T H ’

HIT: With more than 11,000 views on YouTube in the less than a

month, as seen in this screenshot of the video.

Mercury transit across Sun awes astronomy fans

HASAN SHABAN AL [email protected]

MUSCAT: Astronomy enthu-siasts in Oman gathered at the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Bausher to witness the transit of Mercury, a rare event where the fi rst planet crosses the Sun.

A number of astronomers and hobbyists from the Ministry of Endowment and Religious Af-fairs, and the Omani Astronomi-cal Society had set up their ad-vanced telescopes at the mosque’s outdoor fi eld to observe the event, which takes place only 13 times in every century.

Ibrahim Al Mahrooqi from the Omani Astronomical Society said the telescopes used to observe this event are very advanced and can be used to watch a variety of astronomical events.

“We also have a special tel-escope to capture the Sun using a fi lter that protects the human

eyes,” he said.Nada, another hobbyist at the

society, said the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is an ideal place to invite people from all nationali-

ties to witness Mercury’s transit.“Everyone knows this place

and choosing such an iconic loca-tion helps to promote tourism in our country,” she added.

Ibrahim Al Mahrooqi

from the Omani

Astronomical

Society said the

telescopes used to

observe this event

are very advanced

and can be used to

watch a variety of

astronomical events

IDEAL PLACE: Nada, a hobbyist at the Omani Astronomical So-

ciety, said the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is an ideal place to

invite people from all nationalities to witness Mercury’s transit.

We also have a special telescope to capture the Sun using a fi lter that protects the human eyes

Ibrahim Al MahrooqiOmani Astronomical Society member

Sultan Qaboos Higher Center for

Culture and Science holds meeting

MUSCAT: Sultan Qaboos Higher Center for Culture and Science organised yesterday at the Cul-tural Club a meeting about the requirements and standards of Sultan Qaboos Award for Cul-ture, Arts and Literature in its 5th session. The award will be al-located to Omanis this year in the three areas: the Culture Branch in the fi eld of Translation, the Art Branch in the fi eld Omani Folk Art and Literature Branch in the fi eld of Novel.

Dr. Ayisha bint Said Al Ghabishiyah, Offi ce Director of Sultan Qaboos Award for Cul-ture, Arts and Literature gave a brief orientation about the impor-tance of the award, its objectives, requirements and standards in the three areas of the award, say-ing, “The Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature is a cultural, artistic and literary award granted by His Majesty

Sultan Qaboos bin Said periodi-cally, one year for Omanis and Arabs and the second for Omanis only. It emphasises through its message the historical role of the Sultanate. It is a support to the

culture, arts and literature in the Sultanate and the Arab world, in recognition of the outstanding personalities with a long history of achievements that have infl u-enced human thought.” — ONA

A W A R D

ORIENTATION: Dr. Ayisha bint Said Al Ghabishiyah, Offi ce Director

of Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature gave a

brief orientation about the importance of the award, its objectives,

requirements and standards in the three areas of the award. — ONA

A5


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Steps taken to prevent diseases

transmitted to humans by animals

MUSCAT: Specialists at Minis-try of Agriculture and Fisheries are taking all measures to prevent spread of communicable diseases like Crimean hemorrhagic fever.

The Ministry raised the level of the precautionary steps in force in a bid to limit the spread of

Crimean hemorrhagic fever and contain it at various levels.

It contacted live animal export-ers to the Sultanate to ensure com-pliance with all requirements. It also amended mechanisms for im-porting 10 heads of live cattle for direct slaughter by citizen with-

out quarantine. Procedures for internal quarantine of farms with suspected diseased animals and ban their sale until disease risk is resolved have also been activated with the Ministry of Regional Mu-nicipalities and Water Resources in aff ected areas. -ONA

M I N I S T R Y O F A G R I C U L T U R E A N D F I S H E R I E S

A6


Oman is facing many challenges. The fi rst is there are thousands of Omanis looking for jobs

Ahmed Al Hooti, member of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry

51% graduates get first jobs within six months

TARIQ ZIAD AL HAREMI [email protected]

MUSCAT: While many students dream of their fi rst ideal job, some fail to think about the time it takes for them to obtain their fi rst job opportunity.

Some Omani graduates have become employees within a cou-ple of months, while others should wait for more than a year.

The Graduate Survey 2015 is-sued by the Ministry of Higher Education indicates that 51 per cent of students get their fi rst job opportunity within six months or less from among 12,551 students, who completed the survey.

Meanwhile, 22.9 per cent fi nd their fi rst jobs within six to 12 months and 26.1 per cent fi nd

jobs in more than a year.According to the survey, 32.1

per cent were able to fi nd jobs between one to three months fol-lowed by 26.1 per cent, who had to wait for more than a year. 18.9 per cent found jobs within four to

six months. The survey revealed that those who were employed in the private sector had to wait far less than those in the govern-ment sector.

However, those unemployed had their reasons. 25.2 per cent

of them said there weren’t any va-cancies according to their major, while 17.4 per cent said they do not have enough experience for the job.

Around 15.6 per cent said that they had applied for a job, but nev-er got an interview call and 11.1 per cent said they did not pass the exams concerning the job.

Among other reasons were the work environment not being suit-able, lack of the English language skills, failed interviews and not following up after applying.

According to the recent Bayt.com “Skills Gap in the Middle East and North Africa” survey, 70 per cent of companies in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region said fi nding candi-dates for senior positions with the required skills is diffi cult and 49 per cent said fi nding candidates for junior positions with the re-quired skills is also diffi cult.

There are some who refused the jobs off ered and most males agreed that the salary off ered was unacceptable.

Females on the other hand were aff ected by their social status, the area of work, environment and work timings not complimenting their family life, such as taking care of their children and drop-ping them to school.

The waiting period

for jobs in the private

sector was less when

compared to the

government sector

Source: Ministry of Higher Education, “Skills Gap in the MENA” survey. Graphics

GRADUATES GETTING JOBSA survey of 12,551 Omani students indicated that more than 50% of them get their first employment opportunity within six months.

Difficulty in finding qualified candidates

First opportunity

Reasons for not being hired

51.0

22.9

26.1

6-12 months

More than 12months

More than 12months

1-6 months

%

No vacancy as per the

college major

Not enough

experience for the job

Applied but never

got a call

Did not pass the

exams 70% 49%

Seniorposition

Juniorposition

25.2%

17.4% 15.6%11.1%

Getting the first job

32.1

18.9

26.1

4-6 months

1-3 months

%

Students learn about State Council’s workTimes News Service

MUSCAT: A fully guided tour of the State Council off ers a unique combination of experiencing modern-day politics and seeing stunning art and architecture.

The State Council welcomed students from Um Saleem School in North Batinah for a guided tour on Monday.

The State Council’s outreach programme is dedicated to spreading awareness about its work, processes and relevance, which encourages continued and increased engagement be-tween the public and the Coun-cil. The visit included a guided tour and presentation by Ahood Talib Rahby, researcher at the Department of Information and

Research, and an economic re-searcher at the Department of Meetings and Committees.

The students received a de-tailed explanation about the func-tions and powers of the Council,

and the tasks and responsibilities entrusted to it, as well as an in-troduction to the organisational structure of the Council and its major organs. The presentation, defi ned the partnership between

the citizen and the government. It also focused on the special provi-sions of the State Council vested in the Basic Law of the State.

Rahby added that the articles stipulate the number of its mem-bers, and the mechanism of their appointment, and the terms of membership of the State Council, along with the diff erence between the State Council and the Shura Council in terms of reference, and the draft law process.

He further emphasised that the Council is always trying to acti-vate the level of partnership with the local community through lec-tures, and seminars and in addi-tion to hosting an active bilingual website, and using Facebook and Twitter to connect and accept re-sponses from the public.

S P R E A D I N G A W A R E N E S S

GUIDED TOUR: The State Council’s outreach programme is dedi-

cated to spreading awareness about its work and processes.

First bilingual portal launched in OmanStaff Reporter

MUSCAT: Online travel agen-cies will not overtake their offl ine counterparts, said Daniel Naou-movitch, chief executive offi cer (CEO) of Sabre Travel Network Middle East, which launched Sky-Souq.com in partnership with the Suhail Bahwan Group on Monday.

CEO Naoumovitch said online technologies will enhance the ca-pabilities of offl ine travel agencies to keep up with today’s develop-ment of technology.

“The sky is the limit in the Mid-dle East, with online it can only enhance the capabilities of the offl ine travel agent,” he said. He added that the role of the tradi-tional travel agent will not disap-pear, but that it will have to adapt

to the technology. “An offl ine travel agency that does not have online as part of its strategy today will miss out. It is time for the lo-cal travel agencies, if they haven’t already, to consider going into the

online arena,” he said. Naoumov-itch made these remarks during the launch of SkySouq.com, the fi rst of its kind online travel por-tal headquartered in Muscat that was launched in the presence of Amal Suhail Bahwan, managing director and board member of the Suhail Bahwan Group and senior government offi cials. Bahwan un-veiled the new travel portal’s logo and made the fi rst online booking.

The new online travel platform SkySouq.com off ers potential travellers a wide range of travel products, such as fl ights, hotels, holiday packages and other travel services, with the fl exibility to pick and choose their travel plans according to their preferences and budget from over a million in-ventories.

Skysouq.com is the fi rst bilin-gual portal in Oman giving valu-able Omani travellers the choice to browse in Arabic or English and purchase their travel products round the clock.

Gururaj S.A., general manager at the Suhail Bahwan Group, said SkySouq was established to meet the needs of the younger genera-tion in Oman.

“Travel is the third largest prod-uct bought online,” he said. He added that mobile use of internet is high in Oman. “E-commerce will go a long way in this market and this is the right thing for us to target,” he said.

SkySouq will aim to promote Oman as a destination, as well as promote local entrepreneurship, Gururaj said.

O N L I N E T R A V E L P O R T A L

‘NOC rule stabilises labour market’

S W I T C H I N G J O B S

“This rule brings stability in the la-bour market,” he added.

Asked if the rule could be relin-quished in the future, he said, “It depends on the circumstances and the labour market situation.”

Currently, an expatriate worker can switch jobs in the Sultanate only if his/her employer agrees to grant the worker a no-objection letter.

Without this letter, the law pre-vents the expat from returning to Oman for work before two years.

“Oman is facing many chal-lenges. The fi rst is there are thou-sands of Omanis looking for jobs. The number isn’t less than 30,000. At the same time, the economy… with the low oil prices. So the gov-ernment itself and the Omanis will make all their eff orts to em-ploy nationals on a priority,” said Ahmed Al Hooti, member of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI).

“They are not going to look for foreigners as much as they are looking to solve these problems. We don’t need to be worried about the talented expat moving else-where. Of all these Omanis, I be-lieve at least 30-40 per cent [of the 30,000] will be talented. So we have enough people available in the market.”

Mohammad Al Farji, a member of the Oman Trade Union, said, “This hard rule is to control the private sector. We need to support it. Some people just run away from the company that brings them to Oman.”

Good systemCalling NOC, a “good system”, of-fi cials of the Shanfari Group of Companies say the rule of having mandatory NOC shouldn’t be re-linquished.

“There is a commitment from the company side. It brings an employee to Oman and when an employee wants to leave or join another company after say six or seven months, there is a wastage of resources, expenditure, time and training and all that. So NOC is a good system,” Sheikh Zaka-ria bin Said Al Shanfari, Managing Director, said.

Mark Pudwell, of recruitment services company Competence HR, said that the current NOC sys-tem may deter skilled job-seekers from considering opportunities in Oman.

“Some nations have recognised

the fact that they cannot attract highly skilled people by restrict-ing the terms of their contracts,” he said.

Moral obligationHowever, he said that professional job-seekers have a moral obliga-tion to see out the terms of their contract and failure to do so should result in them being subjected to a work ban.

“So perhaps the NOC system could refl ect this by permitting those who have fulfi lled the terms of their contract to seek similar roles in country and sector.

“This would ensure that these skills are not lost nor discouraged,” he suggested.

At the other end of the argu-ment, some company bosses re-port facing diffi culties in hiring expat workers.

“It’s limiting the talent,” said Philip K Philip, group CEO of the Muscat Insurance Company and Muscat Life Assurance Company.

“Lately, I’ve found [that] not many talented [people] are inter-ested to come to Oman.

“This could be an after-eff ect of this restrictions. We have wit-nessed that the interested candi-dates from outside Oman are not like before,” he said.

Expat manpower“Today we have 76 per cent Oma-nis in our company. Still we need this expert or the expat manpower from outside the country. Com-paratively, there is lesser interest in Oman,” Philip added.

Toheed S, a senior executive of a perfume manufacturing said, “It is very hard to get any experi-enced candidate even with NOC. My company had a requirement in sales division and for two months I have been searching for the right candidate with NOC but failed to get even one,” he said.

“I even posted advertisement in a local paper and several job por-tals. It was of no use. And fi nally my company selected a fresher from outside Oman. Now we need to train him for at least fi ve months by compromising on our sales fi g-ures,” he said.

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HAVE YOUR SAY Send us your comments at facebook.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com [email protected]

SkySouq.com off ers potential

travellers a wide range of travel

products.

Al Rumhy plans new academy

Al Rumhy also got the chance to meet Tiger Woods at a golf tour-nament in Abu Dhabi, where he played the role of his father’s cad-die. Woods was playing at the same tournament and luckily for Al Rumhy, he got a chance to meet his favourite golfer.

The year was 2014 and it was a bright one for Al Rumhy, as he managed to do well at the Asian Games in South Korea and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) tournament in Saudi Arabia. “By the end of day one, I was in the fi fth place and fi nished 18th out of the 60 best Asian players at the end of day four, this was in South Korea. In Saudi Arabia, I managed to put up a good show and won a gold medal in the net category.”

Recently, Al Rumhy played at the GCC golf tournament in Doha, where he performed quite well.

He is now waiting to take part in the 114th Malaysian Open, which is probably one of the oldest golf tournaments in the world. It’s hap-pening from May 19 to 22, and Al Rumhy is the only one from Oman who will be taking part.

“I am really excited to be taking part in the Malaysian Open be-cause it is perhaps one of the old-est tournaments in the world. It’s got a lot of history to it and so I am hoping to see lots of tradition and history there as well.”

To transfer his skills to the next generation, A Rumhy wants to start an academy where children can not only learn everything about golf, but also get involved with diff erent sports and fi tness activities. “I am really passionate about starting this new academy where children can not only come and acquire skills in golfi ng, but

also get engaged in diff erent sport-ing activities.”

At 32, Al Rumhy has been bless-ed with a wonderful family. He has two little children—daughter Ra-zaan (5) and son Yousuf (2), and Al Rumhy said he hoped that one day his son will also take to the sport just like he did from his father. Both his children go with their fa-ther to the golf course and watch him play regularly.

“I would love to see Yousuf play golf one day, he is small now, but perhaps when he is four he will be more focused and then I can train him.” Since golf has been a lifelong passion, Al Rumhy wants to play for the national team for as long as he can. “I love golf and it’s the four best players, who get chosen for tournaments and I want to make sure that I am in this set of four players for as long as possible.”

H O N I N G S K I L L S

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Drive launched for rational use of antibiotics

MUSCAT: As part of a national plan to tackle the risk of Anti-microbial Resistance (AMR), a national campaign to defi ne the rational use of antibiotics was launched by the Ministry of Health on Monday.

The National AMR campaign themed “Antibiotics: Wise Use, Better Outcomes” was launched at the Crown Plaza Hotel under the patronage of Dr. Fu’aad bin Ja’afar Al Sajwani, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, in the presence of Dr. Ahmed bin Mo-hammed Al Saidi, Minister of Health along with a number of ministers, members of the State Council and Majlis Al Shura.

The campaign is being organ-ised by the Ministry of Health (MOH), represented by the Direc-torate General of Diseases Sur-veillances and Control in collabo-ration with the MoH Directorates and related ministries.

The campaign aims to defi ne the rational use of antibiotics in

the health, animals and agricul-ture sectors, end ensure coor-dination between these sectors within a national plan to tackle the risk of AMR.

In addition to applying a high-level of infection prevention to reduce risk of infection, as well as raising awareness among the patients, health workers, agricul-ture specialists and veterinarians.

Draft of national strategyDr. Amal Al Ma’ani, Director of Central Department of Infection Prevention and Control stated: “The Directorate General of Dis-eases Surveillances and Control has developed a draft of national strategy to combat the (AMR). The strategy aims to gather the concerned authorities to agree and implement a coordinated re-sponse in cooperation with the international organisations at the national level”.

The most disturbing problem for doctors and workers in the fi eld of human and animal health in the world is prevalence of re-sistance of various infectious mi-

crobes against the antibiotics. It is expected in the near future

to spread the outbreaks of infec-tious with number of serious com-municable microbes, for which it has no eff ective antibiotic.

The National Committee of Resistance the Antibiotics com-prises the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fish-eries, the private sector (hospitals & pharmacies), Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Armed Force Hospital, Royal Oman Police Hos-pital, The Research Council, the media mass, the community lead-ers, Public Authority for Consum-er Protection, Food Safety Center at the Ministry of Regional Mu-nicipalities and Water Resources, Ministry of Environment & Cli-mate Aff air and Oman Medical Specialty Board (OMSB).

Afterward, the chief guest and the Minister of Health launched and approved the National Plan on the Resistance of Antibiotics, the National Guide of Antibiotics and the Epidemiological Surveil-lance System of Microbes Re-sistant to Antibiotics. -ONA

The national

campaign aims to

defi ne the rational

use of antibiotics

and ensure proper

coordination to

tackle the risk

posed by antibiotic

resistance

DRIVE: The National Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) campaign

was launched under the patronage of Dr. Fu’aad bin Ja’afar Al

Sajwani, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. – ONA

Alawi opens ‘Call of Peace’ eventStaff Reporter

MUSCAT: Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Minister Responsible for Foreign Aff airs opened at Mus-cat Grand Mall yesterday, an the “Call of Peace” event organised by Values Centre with the participa-tion of a large number of children of the communities in the Sultan-ate representing several countries.

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Aleppo fighting rages as US, Russia try to revive truce

BEIRUT/PARIS: Syrian gov-ernment forces and their allies fought insurgents near Aleppo on Monday and jets carried out raids around a nearby town seized by rebels, a monitoring group said, despite international eff orts to re-duce the violence.

The United States and Russia, who support rival sides in Syria’s civil war, said on Monday they would work to revive a February “cessation of hostilities” agree-ment which reduced fi ghting in parts of the country for several weeks. But warplanes struck the town of Khan Touman, southwest of Aleppo, the British-based Syri-an Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels also fought govern-ment forces east of Damascus, and jets struck the rebel-held towns of Maarat Al Numan and Idlib.

Surge in bloodshedA recent surge in bloodshed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, wrecked the 10-week-old, partial truce sponsored by Wash-ington and Moscow which had al-lowed UN-brokered peace talks to convene in Geneva.

The talks, attended by govern-ment and opposition delegates including representatives from rebel groups, broke up last month with both sides accusing the other of killing the truce.

Russia and the United States said in a joint statement they would step up eff orts to convince the warring parties to abide by the ceasefi re agreement.

“We have decided to reconfi rm our commitment to the (ceasefi re) in Syria and to intensify eff orts to ensure its nation-wide implemen-tation,” they said.

“We demand that parties cease any indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including civilian infra-structure and medical facilities.”

Russia’s military intervention last September helped President Bashar Al Assad reverse some re-bel gains in the west of the coun-try, including in Aleppo province.

But insurgents captured the town of Khan Touman last week,

infl icting a rare setback on gov-ernment forces and allied mili-tias who suff ered heavy losses in the fi ghting. Aleppo city is one of the biggest strategic prizes in a war now in its sixth year, and has been divided into government and rebel-held zones through much of the confl ict. The Observatory said warplanes struck rebel-held areas of the city early on Monday, and rebels fi red shells into govern-ment-held neighbourhoods.

Al Manar, the television chan-nel of Damascus’s Hezbollah said on Monday troops had destroyed a tank belonging to insurgents and killed some of its occupants.

On the eastern edge of Damas-cus, government forces and their allies shelled rebel-held areas and

clashed with insurgents in the area, the Observatory and the rebel force Jaish Al Islam said. Three people were killed and 13 wounded in air strikes on Idlib, it said. Jaish Al Islam agreed with a rival rebel group, Failaq Al Rah-man, that both would vacate a town they have been fi ercely fi ght-ing over for almost two weeks, the Observatory said.

AgreedThe groups, two of the strongest operating in the area, agreed to make no more attempts to mili-tarily occupy the town of Misraba in the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus, and return it to civilian rule. Quiet returned to the town after 13 days of heavy artillery ex-

changes which saw Jaish Al Islam take control of it over the weekend and capture around 50 rival fi ght-ers. Saudi Arabia condemned air strikes on a camp for displaced Syrians west of Aleppo last week which killed at least 28 people, saying it was part of “the genocide committed by Bashar Al Assad’s forces against civilians in Syria”.

A Saudi cabinet statement on Monday said the strikes on the camp, alongside the prevention of humanitarian aid deliver-ies to Syrians, constituted war crimes. Damascus has denied targeting the camp or obstructing aid deliveries.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, hosting a meeting in Paris of Assad’s opponents, said Syrian government forces and their allies had bombarded hospi-tals and refugee camps.

“It is not Daesh (IS) that is being attacked in Aleppo, it is the mod-erate opposition,” Ayrault said.

The US-Russian joint state-ment said Moscow would work with Syrian authorities “to mini-mise aviation operations over areas that are predominantly in-habited by civilians or parties to the cessation”.

It also said the two powers would press the rival parties to the confl ict to ensure humanitarian deliveries to several towns which have been largely cut off by the fi ghting.

Ayrault said Monday’s meeting would call on Russia to put pres-sure on Assad to stop the attacks, adding that humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need. “Talks must resume, negotiations are the only solution,” he said on radio RTL, ahead of his meeting with ministers from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Britain, as well as Riad Hijab, chief coordi-nator of the main Syrian opposi-tion negotiating group. The joint statement issued by Washington and Moscow must be implement-ed, Ayrault said. — Reuters

Warplanes struck

the town of Khan

Touman, southwest

of Aleppo, the

British-based Syrian

Observatory for

Human Rights said

Husband of executed woman gets life in prison

Suspected militant killed

DUBAI: The husband of a woman who was executed for killing a US kindergarten teacher in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was himself jailed for life on Monday for plot-ting militant attacks, a govern-ment-linked daily said on Monday.

Ala’a Badr Abdullah Al Hashe-mi, 31, fatally stabbed the teacher in the toilet of an Abu Dhabi shop-ping mall in December 2014. She was executed - by fi ring squad, UAE media said - last July after a trial in which she was also con-victed of planting a bomb outside the home of an American-Egyp-tian doctor. Her husband - iden-tifi ed by Emirati media by his initials M.A.H. - was charged in December with planning attacks on tourist buses and an American military base.

M.A.H., 34 at the time of his ar-rest, was accused of seeking to join IS and giving money to a member of Al Qaeda. The Federal Supreme Court heard that he also plotted to bomb the Yas Marina Formula 1 race track and an IKEA furniture store, according to the English-language daily The National.

The accused denied all charges and said he has been held in soli-tary confi nement for six months and refused family visits. — Reuters

DUBAI: Saudi security forces said on Monday they had killed a sus-pected militant during a siege which followed an attack on a police station in the west of the country. Brigadier General Mohammed Al Harithi told Ekhbariya TV that Moham-med Al Maliki had responded with gunfi re to appeals for his surren-der during the stand-off near the Western city of Taif. — Reuters

U A E

S A U D I A R A B I A

INNOCENT VICTIM: A wounded Syrian boy receives medical attention at a makeshift hospital, fol-

lowing reported Syrian government air strikes on the rebel-held town of Arbin in the eastern Ghouta

region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on Monday. – AFP

A9

INDIAT U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

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Turmoil in parliament over PM’s remark against Sonia

NEW DELHI: Congress on Mon-day created a storm in parliament and disrupted proceedings over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s charge at a poll rally that an Ital-ian court had named Sonia Gan-dhi in AgustaWestland chopper bribery case.

The Rajya Sabha saw four ad-journments in the fi rst two hours because of the continued uproar and sloganeering by Congress members, leading to washout of the Zero Hour and Question Hour.

“Narendra Modi maafi mange.’ Feku Mama maafi maange (Nar-endra Modi should apologise. Bluff master should apologise),” shouted members of the Con-gress in the Rajya Sabha, which

failed to transact any business except one question during the Question Hour.

In the Lok Sabha too, the issue generated heat soon after it as-sembled for the day with Congress members raising the matter.

ControversyThe Congress questioned how the prime minister could make such allegations when defence minis-ter had not stated this in his reply to debates on the controversy in both the Houses last week.

The opposition party wanted to know which court Modi was quot-ing. “Pradhan Mantri House mein aao (Prime Minister should come to the House)” and reply, Congress members chanted.

In Rajya Sabha, they demanded an apology from the prime minis-ter, forcing Deputy Chairman P.

J. Kurien to fi rst adjourn the pro-ceedings of the House twice dur-ing Zero Hour, fi rst for 10 minutes and then again till 1200 hours.

Again when the House met at noon, Chairman Hamid Ansari’s pleas to allow the Question Hour to function did not evoke any positive response as the Congress members created pandemonium and raised slogans against the prime minister.

At one point, an exasperated Ansari remarked: “It is not be-coming of the House”. Do not do that. Allow the question hour to take place.”

In the Lok Sabha, Leader of Congress Mallikarjun Kharge was heard saying that the prime min-ister’s comments could infl uence Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate which are investigating the al-

leged kickbacks in the Rs36 bil-lion VVIP helicopter deal.

Asking “which court has indict-ed” Sonia Gandhi, Kharge said it was a serious issue and the party might be forced to move Privilege Motion against the prime minis-ter. Raising the issue in the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress) said no member in the Lower House or the Upper House, dur-ing the debate on AgustaWestland deal, said the UPA leadership had taken money.

Maintaining that Congress had demanded stringent action against any leader or offi cer found guilty in the case, he said Modi had during poll rallies in south Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu claimed that it was not his state-ment but an Italian court has said that Sonia was guilty in the case.

He asked why Modi did not in-tervene in the debates on the issue in either of the House to say this.

Azad noted that Defence Min-ister Manohar Parrikar had not named any UPA leader in his reply and the charge was being used to tarnish the image of the Congress and its leadership.

CBI, which is conducting an inquiry in the case, falls directly under the prime minister, he said and asked will the investigating agency not be infl uenced by such statements.

Anand Sharma (Congress) said the prime minister should come to the House and substantiate the statement he has made.

Kurien said what is being at-tributed to the prime minister was said outside the House and the Congress can reply to that outside

as well. “The Chair cannot take cognizance of it,” he said, adding “I cannot do anything.”

As Kurien ruled out Sharma’s notice under rule 267 to suspend business to take up the issue, Congress members trooped in the Well raising slogans against the prime minister.

“Is Chair responsible for politi-cal speeches,” he asked.

Minister of State for Parlia-mentary Aff airs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said while no one guilty in the deal will be spared, no inno-cent will be touched.As the Con-gress members shouted slogans against prime minister, Naqvi asked Chair to rein them in saying the BJP was also capable of shout-ing slogans.

According to him, Modi had said “what the world is talking and what the Italian court has said.”

He noted that Modi had not made any policy announcement outside the House and so has not violated any rule.

“It was an election rally speech,” he said, adding that no one who has taken bribe will be spared and the Congress members’ demand will be taken care of.

Sharma asked if the prime min-ister was pre-empting the CBI in-vestigation since the probe agency comes under him.

Modi, he said, has made a state-ment which contradicts what the defence minister had said on the fl oor of the House. He went on to state that prime minister’s state-ment was violative of norms and dignity of the house. Kurien, how-ever, said the Chair cannot ask the prime minister to come and make a statement on the issue. - PTI

Congress disrupted

proceedings of

parliament over

Prime Minister

Narendra Modi’s

charge at a poll

rally that an Italian

court had named

Sonia Gandhi in

AgustaWestland

chopper bribery case

SPELLING OUT: Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge speaks in the

Lok Sabha in New Delhi on Monday. - PTI / TV GRAB

Nine disqualifi ed MLAs cannot vote in Tuesday’s fl oor testNAINITAL/NEW DELHI: Sacked chief minister Harish Ra-wat on Monday got a major boost ahead of the confi dence vote in the Uttarakhand Assembly on Tues-day with the high court dismiss-ing the petition of nine Congress MLAs challenging their disquali-fi cation and the Supreme Court refusing to give any relief to them.

It is advantage Rawat as Justice U. C.Dhyani of the high court dis-missed two writ petitions fi led by the rebel Congress MLAs against the Speaker’s action, holding that by their conduct the lawmakers have “voluntarily given up mem-bership of their political party”, a ground for disqualifi cation under the anti-defection law.

“This court, subject to scrutiny of Speaker’s action on the princi-ples of natural justice, therefore, holds that the ingredients of para-graph 2 (1) (a) of the Tenth Sched-ule of the Constitution are met against the petitioners.

“By their conduct, it has been es-tablished that they have ‘voluntar-ily given up membership of their political party’ even if they have not become members of any other

political party,” Justice U. C. Dhy-ani said in his 57-page judgement.

After excluding the nine dis-qualifi ed MLAs, the Assembly has an eff ective strength of 61 mem-bers. Of that, the Congress has 27 MLAs on its own and claims the backing of six-member PDF to make the ruling side’s fi gure of 33.

Rawat needs the backing of 31 MLAs for a simple majority.

The BJP has 28 MLAs, includ-ing that of Bhim Lal Arya whose loyalty is in doubt.

The PDF comprises two of Ba-hujan Samaj Party, one of Uttara-khand Kranti Dal and three Inde-pendents.

JudgementThe high court judgement referred to the joint memorandum signed by the nine MLAs along with the BJP legislators and given to the Governor on March 18 and said dissent is not defection and the Tenth Schedule while recognising dissent prohibits defection.

“The instant case is an illustra-tion of the fact that the petitioners have not only deserted the leader and deserted the government, but

under the garb of dissent, they have, by their conduct, deserted the party, otherwise they would not have said in the joint memo-randum that they voted against the Appropriation Bill, it was not passed, the Government is in mi-

nority and, therefore, the Cabinet of Harish Rawat be dismissed.

“There is a thin line of diff er-ence between deserting the Lead-er/Government and deserting the party. Dissent is permissible only so long as it does not tread into the

realm of ‘voluntarily relinquishing the membership of the party’.

“If dissent is permitted to un-fathomable limit, then it will amount to deserting the party and would also tantamount to ‘volun-tarily giving up his membership of such political party’ under Para-graph 2(1)(a) of the Tenth Sched-ule,” Justice Dhyani said.

Shortly after the high court ver-dict, the MLAs moved the Supreme Court challenging the order and sought an immediate relief of being allowed to participate in Tuesday’s fl oor test in the Assembly.

“The prayer for interim relief (for stay of the HC judgement) can be considered on the date of next hearing,” an apex court bench comprising Justices Dipak Mishra and Shiva Kirti Singh said while fi xing the matter for hearing on July 12.

It issued notice to Speaker Go-vind Singh Kunjwal, who had dis-qualifi ed the MLAs.

Justice Dhyani said his order will not come in the way of the aff ected MLAs to approach the Speaker for a review of his action.

Earlier, Counsel for the disquali-

fi ed MLAs, C. A. Sundaram, men-tioned the matter before Chief Justice of India T. S. Thakur about the high court verdict that had come earlier in the day.

The CJI asked the counsel to approach the bench which had on Friday ordered the fl oor test.

The bench of Justice Mishra and Justice Singh allowed the Centre’s plea for modifi cation of its Friday order appointing the Principal Secretary (Legislative Assembly and Parliamentary Af-fairs) of Uttarakhand government to oversee conduct of the fl oor test on Tuesday.

Ordering a fl oor test on May 10 in the Assembly, the Supreme Court had said “if they (disquali-fi ed MLAs) have the same sta-tus” at the time of vote of confi -dence, they cannot participate in the House.

A specially convened two-hour-long session during which the President’s Rule will be kept in abeyance will be held between 11am and 1pm for a “single agenda” of fl oor test, a bench of Justices Di-pak Misra and Shiva Kirti Singh had said. - PTI

U T T A R A K H A N D

ELATED: Former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat is greeted by Con-

gress party workers in Dehradun after the Supreme Court upheld

the disqualifi cation of nine rebels Congress MLAs on Monday. - PTI

Hundreds witness transit of MercuryNEW DELHI: Hundreds of space enthusiasts in Delhi witnessed a tiny black dot crossing the Sun, marking a rare astronomical event — the Mercury transit as the planet crossed the Sun between 4.43pm.and 7.01pm on Monday.

However, in Srinagar, where astrophysicists and space experts gathered under the aegis of Indian Astronomical Congress to witness the transit had to rely on webcast-ing from Noida, as clouds blocked the Sun in the valley.

“It’s a very rare event, as last time it occurred in 2006 but was not visible in India. The next tran-sit is due 16 years from now, which is a long time. The cloudy weather here in Srinagar, did obstruct the observation but the live streaming helped a lot,” Prof. Manzoor Malik, HOD Physics, Kashmir University, said on phone from Srinagar. In the national capital, people, especially children were mesmerized after watching the rare celestial event at the Nehru Planetarium. -IANS

R A R E C E L E S T I A L E V E N T

SPECTACULAR: The transit

of Mercury, a rare celestial

phenomenon, as observed from

Worli Sea face in Mumbai on

Monday. - PTI

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INDIA T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

...(the jungle raj barb) is a subjective approach of the BJP. For them the person committing a crime is more important. But for me the incident is more signifi cant irrespective of the person or his family’s standing

Nitish Kumar, Bihar chief minister

Armed guards protect remaining water in drought-parched Tikamgarh cityTIKAMGARH (India): Authori-ties in this drought-parched city in central India have deployed round-the-clock armed guards at a river-fed community reservoir to prevent farmers from siphoning the remaining water for irrigation.

With rainfall in Tikamgarh dis-trict this year 52 per cent below average — the second dry year for the area — water is now available to city residents only sporadically, with fears even that may run out during the peak heat months of May and June, authorities say.

Forty-seven-year-old Suryakant Tiwari, one city resident, said his family and many others now have drinking and household water supplied only once every fi ve days.

“I have not seen such a condition in my lifetime. Almost every water source in the area has dried up. We don’t know how we will survive,” he said.

ProhibitedFarmers have been prohibited from drawing water from reser-voirs to irrigate their crops. But Ti-kamgarh Municipal Corporation offi cials fear farmers from adjoin-ing Uttar Pradesh state — whose farms border the Bari Ghat dam, fed by the Jumuniya River — are poaching water to try to keep their crops alive.

“If crops continue to be irrigated using the river water, it is not going to last long and there will be severe crisis during the summer season,” warned Laxmi Giri, the Tikamgarh

municipal corporation president.“Our priority is to supply drink-

ing water to the people.” The Ja-muniya River is the only source of drinking water for over 100,000 people in Tikamgarh, she said. But “farmers of the neighbouring state try to open the gates of the dam and draw water illegally using pipelines. We’re therefore com-pelled to deploy guards,” Giri said.

Tikamgarh is hardly alone. The drought-ravaged Bundelkhand, a region in central India spread over

the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, is suff ering some of the worst drought in memory. Crops in the area have been badly hit, cattle are dying of thirst and lack of grazing, and there are grow-ing fears that even drinking water could run dry before the monsoon is expected to begin in June.

“All the ponds, reservoirs and water bodies which earlier sup-plied water in areas of Tikamgarh have dried up. With no water avail-able for irrigation, farmers have

abandoned their crops and are migrating to nearby urban areas in search of livelihood and for suste-nance. Life is really hard for them,” said Rajendra Adhvrayu, a local journalist who writes on water is-sues in the region.

“The situation has never been so bad,” he added. “This is for the fi rst time that the tussle over water has degenerated into a battle of sorts. We fear the situation will be grave during the coming months.”

The Jamuniya River sepa-

rates Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh states along some of its length. A 1974 water sharing pact gives Madhya Pradesh 17 per cent of the water stored in the Jamu-niya Dam in Uttar Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh stores its share in fi ve dams, including the Bari Ghat. But this year, water is avail-able only in Bari Ghat dam. Water in the four other dams — Harpura, Charpuva, Madiya and Sudan — has run out. Giri said authorities in Tikamgarh had shut off the elec-trical supply to farmers in neigh-bourhing Uttar Pradesh to try to prevent pumping of water from the dam for irrigation.

Farmers have instead turned to using diesel pumps to pull water from the reservoir, he said. “The administration has failed to con-vince them not to draw water ille-gally from the dam,” she said.

Heat wavesMeanwhile, the Indian Met De-partment’s prediction that the en-tire country could be abnormally hot in May and June, with longer and more severe heat waves, has unnerved many people in the Bun-delkhand.

India’s weather offi ce has pre-dicted that monsoon rains are likely to be above average this year, a potential source of relief. But the rains, normally due the second week of June, have been regularly delayed in recent years. Jayant Verma, a resident of Tikamgarh, said moving elsewhere to fi nd wa-

ter, even temporarily, is not an op-tion for many families.

“My children attend the school here. I have a job here. I can’t go to any other place along with my fam-ily. I don’t know what we shall do. The government has failed to pro-vide any relief so far,” he said.

The search for water has be-come so intense that in many plac-es — including Madhya Pradesh’s Dindori district — children are descending into deep, almost-dry wells to try to fetch what little wa-ter is available, residents said. In some areas of the Bundelkhand, farmers have been unable to sow any crops this year, they said, and animals are at risk.

“Animals are dying without wa-ter. We can’t do anything,” said Kanta Prasad, a resident of the Jatara sub-district of Tikamgarh.

“If we give water to anmals, there’ll be none left for us. We’re feeling so helpless. Every drop of water counts.” The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan has promised that drink-ing water will be made available to those who need it. He said the government has prepared a con-tingency plan to address the wors-ening drought, and announced a high-level review of the situation in the region.

Residents, meanwhile, can do little but wait for rain, and worry. “What will happen if the monsoon is delayed?” asked Adhvrayu.

“Or it plays truant, as in previous years?” - Thomson Reuters Foundation

D R Y W E A T H E R

SCORCHING SUMMER: Residential apartments are seen next to the dried-up Ratanpura lake on the out-

skirts of Ahmedabad, India on Saturday. The drought-ravaged Bundelkhand, a region in central India

spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, is suff ering some of the worst drought in

memory. - Reuters/Amit Dave

Nitish brushes aside ‘jungle raj’ barb over Gaya incidentPATNA: Brushing aside Opposi-tion barb of “return of jungle raj” in the wake of murder of a youth in Gaya allegedly at the hands a Janata Dal-United JD(U) MLC’s son, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asserted “rule of law prevails” in east Indian state of Bi-har and culprit cannot escape the “long arms of law”.

“...(the jungle raj barb) is a subjec-tive approach of the BJP. For them the person committing a crime is more important. But for me the incident is more signifi cant irre-spective of the person or his fam-ily’s standing,” Kumar told report-ers after the ‘Janata ke Darbar me Mukhya Mantri’ programme here.

Twenty-year-old Aditya Sach-

deva was shot dead allegedly by Rakesh Ranjan Yadav alias Rocky Kumar Yadav, son of JD (U) MLC Manorama Devi, when the former overtook over the latter’s SUV.

Giving details of the police ac-tion into the incident, Kumar said the accused’s father Bindi Yadav and Manorama Devi’s bodyguard were arrested soon after the inci-dent. The bodyguard, a policeman, has been suspended.

“An SIT has been constituted and the police is on hot pursuit of the fugitive off ender....the police is working independently without any infl uence from any quarter,” he said.

Kumar was reacting to a ques-tion on BJP observing a bandh in

Gaya on Monday to protest against “return of jungle raj”.

Seeking to turn the tables on BJP, he said, “What is happening in Delhi where police are under di-rect control of the Central govern-ment? Go through the latest data of National Crime Record Bureau to fi nd out where Bihar stands in term of crime rate,” he said.

Asked if action would be initi-ated also against Manorama Devi, the chief minister did not give a categorical answer but said “a thorough probe is on in the inci-dent and nobody would be spared.”

“How long can one run away from law whose arms are very long?” the chief minister said.

Kumar said for him the meaning

of “rule of law” is not about who is committing a crime but what ac-tion is taken immediately in the case of any such event.

Expressing pain over the inci-dent, the chief minister said, “Can anybody claim that there will be no single incident of crime. Criminal acts take place due to many rea-sons like mindset of the off enders or situation prevailing at the time of the act.”

Taking on opposition BJP which has gone hammer and tongs against him in the wake of the in-cident, the chief minister said, “What did they do all those sev-en-and-a-half year of being with me except ‘chadar taan ke sona’ (sleeping peacefully)?” - PTI

M U R D E R O F Y O U T H

ALL EARS: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar listening to the prob-

lems of people during ‘Janata Ka Darbar’ programme in Patna on

Monday. - PTI

BJP shows PM’s degrees, asks Kejriwal to apologise

NEW DELHI: BJP on Monday released copies of BA and MA de-grees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in response to Aam Aadmi Party’s allegations questioning his degree from Delhi but AAP hit back saying the documents were “forged” and had “glaring discrep-ancies” in them.

In a bid to set at rest the row over Modi’s educational qualifi ca-tions, BJP President Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jait-ley addressed a press conference where they released the gradua-tion degree taken from Delhi Uni-versity and the masters’ degree from Gujarat University.

The two leaders launched a blis-tering attack on AAP leader and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accusing him of lowering the pub-

lic discourse by spreading “lies” and substituting governance with “politics of adventurism”.

They demanded an apology from him. Shah and Jaitley al-leged that Kejriwal has tried to turn a “lie” into truth by running a campaign to mislead the people of the country.

AllegationsJaitley said the kind of allegations that have been levelled against Modi threatens “federal polity” in the country when a Union Terri-tory indulges in “irresponsible be-haviour” to attack the prime min-ister. They challenged the Delhi chief minister to verify his claims.

“Arvind Kejriwal has been spreading lies about the prime minister’s credentials. He has committed the sin of defaming the

country. It is very unfortunate that we have to hold a press conference about the prime minister’s educa-tional qualifi cation.

“When you do not have any proof, how can you spread allega-tions. He should apologise to the entire nation,” said Shah, adding he will also write a letter to Kejri-wal to satisfy his queries. When asked about the authenticity of Modi’s BA degree, Shah told a re-porter to check it with the Delhi University. Jaitley said it was ironical that such a charge has come from a political party sever-al of whose MLAs are being pros-ecuted for having fake degrees.

“The politics of adventurism is being treated as a substitute for governance,” he said.

Kejriwal has been alleging that the prime minister’s BA degree is

fake and that it was obtained by a namesake of him from Alwar.

Shortly later, however, an un-fazed AAP continued to persist with its claims on the issue. AAP leader Ashutosh addressed a press conference in which he claimed Modi’s name does not match in the BA mark sheet and that of the MA degree and even claimed that there were discrepancies in the year of passing as well.

“Nakal ke liye bhi akal ki za-roorat hai (One needs brains even to copy). The BA mark sheet is dated 1978 while the degree is of the year 1979. His name in the BA mark sheet is Narendra Kumar Damodardas Modi while in Mas-ters degree, it is Narendra Damo-derdas Modi,” said the AAP leader.

He said there were discrepan-cies in the PM’s name even at the

BA level with it being recorded as ‘Narendra Kumar Damodardas Modi’ in one of the mark sheets while it was spelt as ‘Narendra Damoderdas Modi’ in the de-gree certifi cate. Even in BA mark sheets, another AAP leader Dilip Pandey said, surname is spelt “Modi” in one case while it chang-es to “Mody” in another.

Last week, the Delhi chief minis-ter had said that he can assert with “full responsibility” that Delhi Uni-versity’s records have no mention of “Narendra Damodardas Modi” and that one “Narendra Kumar Mahavir Prasad Modi” from Alwar had taken admission in 1975.

Kejriwal had said the issue was not whether the PM was “10th pass or 12th pass” but that he has furnished “fake” certifi cates and “cheated” the people of the country. Jaitley said there cannot be a bigger example of an “Aam Aadmi” than Modi as despite be-ing in public life, he would travel from Gujarat to Delhi in the 70s to take BA examination as an exter-nal student. “I knew this because I was a student union leader in Delhi University then as he would stay in ABVP offi ce in 33, Bunga-low Road here,” he added.

Taking a jibe at AAP, he said it should have rather praised Modi for his educational achievements as a common man for whom it is supposed to speak. “Without checking up any fact, AAP levelled such allegations. It is public dis-course at its lowest level,” he said.

Asked whether a case of defa-mation would be fi led against Ke-jriwal, Shah ruled it out.

He also attacked Congress’ Manish Tewari and JD (U) leader K. C. Tyagi for supporting Kejri-wal on the issue. - PTI

In a bid to set at

rest the row over

Modi’s educational

qualifi cations, Amit

Shah and Arun

Jaitley released the

graduation degree

taken from Delhi

University and the

masters’ degree from

Gujarat UniversityBRIEFING: BJP President Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at a press conference to show

the degrees of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Monday. - PTI

Centre launches

nine steps to

conserve Ganga

SAHIBGANJ (Jharkhand): In line with the Centre’s eff orts to conserve Ganga, Union Water Re-sources Minister Uma Bharti on Monday launched a series of ini-tiatives to check pollution in the river and improve sanitation prac-tices among villagers staying along its stretch Jharkhand.

Speaking at an event here, she said nine initiatives have been taken for eff ective management of solid and liquid waste and partici-pation of local governing agencies in the same.

Bharti, according to an offi cial statement, said eight village-level crematoriums, 32 bathing ghats and 40 community toilets will be constructed along the 83-km stretch of the river in the state.

She stated that more than 10,000 soak pits will be construct-ed through community participa-tion to contain and dispose surplus waste water emerging from house-holds and community-managed hand pumps of the villages.

The government will undertake community-led construction of 1.52 lakh metres of open channel drains in the project villages to en-sure “speedy and safe” disposal of domestic waste, she said.

The BJP leader emphasised that improving health and quality of life of 45,000 households from 78 villages located along Ganga River basin in the state, as the “main aim” of the projects.

Bharti said 78 units will be es-tablished in the hamlets for col-lection, storage and composting of degradable solid waste and for set-ting up small enterprises for non-biodegradable material. The min-ister stated that 5,460 households will be supported for adoption of composting facilities using vermin composting for productive use of animal and agro-waste . - PTI

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World Bank seeks more reforms

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan must speed up reform of the energy sec-tor and bring more women into the labour force if it wants to quicken economic growth that lags far behind regional peers, the World Bank’s country representative said on Monday.

The World Bank expects Pa-kistan’s economy to expand by 4.5 per cent in 2016, missing the government’s 5.5 per cent target and trailing behind other South Asian nations where growth is ex-

pected to average about 7 per cent this year.

The bank sees 2017 growth edg-ing up to 4.8 per cent in Pakistan, a nation of 190 million people.

Experts say the economy needs

to expand by at least 6 per cent a year to absorb new entrants to the work force.

Illango Patchamuthu, the World Bank country director, said Paki-stan had benefi ted from a collapse

in global oil prices and tough fi s-cal measures by the government over the past few years to stabilise the economy.

But he urged faster reform in the energy sector, which has suff ered

decades of under-investment.Businesses say frequent

power outages hurt growth and investment.

“To me, the whole story around power reforms is still only half done,” Patchamuthu told Reuters in an interview.

He said Pakistan must tackle its so-called circular debt problem, which stems from unpaid govern-ment subsidies that build up until power plant owners cannot aff ord fuel. It stands at about $3 billion.

Electricity rationingThe government expects its elec-tricity rationing system of “load-shedding” to end by 2018 after it signed more than $30 billion in energy generation projects as part of the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Project.

But eff orts to privatise a host of electricity distribution companies have stalled, as have other reforms.

Patchamuthu said the govern-ment has been focused on power generation, but it must also seek to improve distribution and upgrade ancient transmission systems.

“A lot more needs to be done in the next several years to build up the whole power infrastructure,” he said.

Labour marketPatchamuthu said another way for Pakistan to signifi cantly boost growth is reforming its male-dom-inated labour market, where wom-en account for only 22 per cent of the workforce.

“If Pakistan wants to get to 7-8 percent (growth) with structural reforms, they also have to much more in drawing women into the labour force,” he said.

Many Pakistani men object to women working and in 2014 Pakistan was ranked as the sec-ond worst nation in the world for gender equality after Yemen, ac-cording to the Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum.

“There are social and cul-tural challenges,” Patchamuthu said.”But if the women are skilled and they are given the right oppor-tunities the economy is only going to bloom and blossom.” — Reuters

Illango Patchamuthu,

the bank’s country

director, urged

Pakistan to bring

more women into

the labour force

ADVICE: Women workers sew fabrics at a garment factory in Karachi. — Reuters fi le photo

HAUTE COUTURE Models present the creation of designer Rang Ja on

the last day of Bridal Couture Week in Karachi on

Sunday. — AFP

Parveen murder suspect sent ontwo-week remandKARACHI: The prime suspect in Parveen Rehman’s murder case was remanded on Monday into police custody for two weeks in Karachi.

On Saturday, police had arrest-ed the suspect, Rahim Swati, dur-ing a raid from Karachi’s Man-ghopir area and recovered a 9mm pistol and a hand-grenade from his possession. Swati’s son Imran Swati was already in the custody of law enforcement agencies.

Orangi Pilot ProjectParveen, the director of the Or-angi Pilot Project, was gunned down by unidentifi ed armed mo-torcyclists in a drive by shooting near Banaras Flyover on March 13, 2013.

According to the investigating offi cer, Swati is under investiga-

tion for his alleged involvement in an encounter [with police] as well as for the murder of the so-cial activist.

Next hearingMeanwhile, an anti-terrorism court has sought a report from police to apprise the court on the next hearing of the case on May 20.

Talking to the media on April 7, SSP Azfar Mahesar said Swati was arrested from the Man-ghopir’s Sultanabad area with the ammunition in his possession.

Further, dozens of suspects involved in land grabbing, water tanker mafi a and extortion were also arrested by a joint interroga-tion team, which concluded that Swati was the key player behind the murder. — Express Tribune

A C T I V I S T

INNOCENT VICTIM: Parveen Rehman was murdered in Karachi

on March 13, 2013. — Express Tribune

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Triumphs, struggles of Arab startups

Sami Mahroum

The recent STEP conference in Dubai – the biggest startup conference for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

region – attracted a lot of buzz. It seemed to indi-cate that the region’s startup scene was coming of age. Yet MENA entrepreneurs are still facing serious structural impediments to progress.

The successes of the region’s startups should not be underestimated. According to Wamda, a regional accelerator platform, more than a dozen startups – including Bayt, Careem, MarkaVIP, Namshi, News Group, Propertyfi nder, and Wadi.com – now have estimated valuations above $100 million. Souq.com, a 3,000-employee com-pany founded in 2005, is poised to be the region’s fi rst “unicorn,” with a valuation above $1 billion.

Yet the regional environment remains far from conducive to entrepreneurship. Beyond the wars, terrorism, and political turbulence plaguing the Arab world – not to mention the usual challenges facing entrepreneurs outside Silicon Valley, such as lack of adequate risk capi-tal, talent, or infrastructure – is a slew of deep-rooted structural problems.

One of those problems relates to enterprise demographics. According to one study, in 2011, family businesses represented up to 70 per cent of the MENA private-sector economy – a higher share than in any other region. This means that a large segment of the business community raises funds, shares equity, and manages operations within small, tight-knit social circles.

A second major hindrance to innovative en-trepreneurship in the MENA region lies in the way governments manage their critical role as clients. Through the procurement of goods and services – which comprises about 10-15 per cent of GDP in developed countries and up to 20 per cent of GDP in developing countries – govern-ments can serve as important drivers of growth and innovation. Silicon Valley’s genesis and growth, it should be recalled, was propelled by government contracts and procurement.

But in MENA countries, the conditions for doing business with the government – includ-ing tendering requirements, payment schedules, and bureaucratic demands – tend to be prohibi-tive for small fi rms (10-50 employees). With small businesses unable to access the market

for public goods and services, they miss out on important opportunities to mature and expand, which limits their capacity to spur broader eco-nomic growth and development.

A third major impediment to innovative en-trepreneurship in MENA countries relates to the industrial structure. Construction, banking, telecommunications, tourism, and traditional manufacturing represent a signifi cant share of the region’s private-sector economy. Companies in these industries tend to be not only family-owned, but also large in size and heavy in capital investment, and they do not typically view start-ups as potential strategic business partners.

All of this implies high barriers to entry for new businesses, which face severely limited opportunities to disrupt, spin off , or even lever-age major industries. Even startups that make some initial headway struggle to scale up in the B2B sector. Unsurprisingly, in these major in-dustries, disruptive entrepreneurship and inno-vation tend to arrive slowly and late. While tel-ecommunications is something of an exception in this sense, even its development is hampered by government regulation.

MENA startups have achieved the most suc-cess online, where the large established players did not show early interest and barriers to entry, in terms of capital investment and market ac-cess, are relatively low. Indeed, most of the suc-cessful companies in this domain sell directly to consumers and conduct transactions via digi-tal payment services that enable them to avoid transactional barriers, such as government pro-curement regulations and high bank fees.

The progress that such startups have man-aged to achieve highlights their potential to spearhead innovation and generate economic growth. It should thus serve as a powerful in-centive for MENA governments and businesses to change their approach. Specifi cally, govern-ments should do more to leverage their spend-ing to support new, innovative businesses, while established companies should open up their op-erations and cooperate with startups to scale up innovative activities that can inject dynamism into markets.

Startups are proven hubs of innovation and drivers of economic growth, employment, and development. It is time for the MENA countries to make the most of that potential. - Project SyndicateAgustaWestland chopper deal was not transparent

This refers to the story, Antony hits back at BJP on AgustaWestland deal (May 9). In light of ongoing assembly polls in a number of Indian states, the BJP seems to be using the issue as a core corrupt practice

that Congress had followed during their tenure. Due to diff erence of opinions within the Congress itself, the deal has aff ected the working of Parliament and is making a disturbing situation at the cost of the public. It is obvious that the party leadership is bound to clarify their role, in particular, the then-prime minister. Perhaps the silence of the prime minister could be worsening the situation within and troubling the party leadership in reaching a conclusion. As far as common people are concerned the deal seems to not have materialised with enough transpar-ency. Antony too holds sole responsibility in explaining and clarifying the guidelines followed in the process of awarding the contract. Meanwhile, the silence of key party leaders invite doubtful scenarios, whether they involved in the deal either

directly or indirectly, Congress must show their might as being a well-rooted political party in India explain its openness while they were in power. — Ramachandran Nair, Ruwi

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New MSM chief is from private sectorMUSCAT: Ahmed Saleh Al Marhoon, general manager of Financial Services Company SAOG, one of the leading stock companies in the Sultanate, will take over as the new director general of the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) from July 1, 2001. For the fi rst time in the history of the exchange, MSM will have a director general from the private sector, and it seems that the 12-year old Omani Stock exchange is on the verge of privatization, marketmen told the the Times of Oman.

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New World Bank report suggests that by 2050, ‘inadequate supply of water could knock down economic growth in some parts of world by as

much as 6 per cent of gross domestic product, sending them into

sustained negative growth. China, India, Pakistan, Middle East and Africa will be seriously aff ected

SHAHID JAVED BURKI

Americans may need to bring in the kids; the presidential election promises to get ugly, a race to the

bottom. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both arouse strong passions,

many of them negative. Both play tough. She is a policy wonk, but

Trump has little interest in a wide-ranging debate on issues

ALBERT R. HUNT

What would happen if the UK were to embark on the two-year

exit process mandated by the Treaty of Lisbon? Could it work in the existing European Economic

Area (the so-called Norwegian solution)? Or should it pursue a

host of bilateral agreements (the “Swiss solution”)?

HAROLD JAMES

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BBC journalist expelled from North Korea over reporting

PYONGYANG: North Korea ex-pelled a BBC journalist on Mon-day over his reporting, the broad-caster and a North Korean offi cial said, as a large group of foreign media members visited the iso-lated country to cover a rare ruling party congress.

Rupert Wingfi eld-Hayes was detained on Friday as he was about to leave the country and taken away for eight hours of questioning and “made to sign a statement”, the network reported.

The British journalist, accom-panied by a BBC producer and

cameraman, arrived in Beijing on Monday evening after a fl ight from Pyongyang, the North Ko-rean capital.

“We’re obviously very glad to be out. We’re going to go and talk to our bosses now. But just relieved to be out,” Wingfi eld-Hayes told reporters at the airport before be-ing driven off in a car, along with his colleagues.

Distorted facts and realitiesWingfi eld-Hayes had “distorted facts and realities” in his coverage, North Korean offi cial O Ryong Il

said in announcing that the re-porter, who is based in Tokyo, was being expelled and would never be let in again.

“They were speaking very ill of the system, the leadership of the country,” O Ryong Il, who is secretary general of a National Peace Committee, told reporters in Pyongyang, according to a video clip published by the Associated Press. Another BBC correspond-ent in Pyongyang, John Sudworth, said in a broadcast report there was “disagreement, a concern over the content of Rupert’s reporting”,

including questioning the authen-ticity of a hospital. In his report of a visit to the children’s hospital in Pyongyang, Wingfi eld-Hayes said the patients looked “remarkably well” and there was not a real doc-tor on duty.

“Everything we see looks like a set-up” he said.

In another report, Wingfi eld-Hayes noted that his offi cial mind-ers were “rather upset with us” over trying to do a report in front of a statute of founding leader Kim Il Sung.

“They clearly felt we said stuff

that was not respectful,” of Kim, he said in his report.

“Now, we are in trouble,” he said, adding that the BBC team had been told to delete its footage.

Sudworth said in his report Wingfi eld-Hayes had been pre-vented from leaving on Friday and taken away.

“(He) was separated from the rest of his team, prevented from boarding that fl ight, taken to a hotel and interrogated by the se-curity bureau here in Pyongyang before being made to sign a state-ment and then released, eventual-ly allowed to rejoin us here in this hotel,” Sudworth said.

A BBC spokesman said four BBC staff remained in the country and he expected they would be al-lowed to stay.

“We are very disappointed that our reporter Rupert Wingfi eld-Hayes and his team have been deported from North Korea after the government took off ence at material he had fi led,” the spokes-man said.

The eight-hour interrogation was conducted by a man who in-troduced himself to Wingfi eld-Hayes as the person who pros-ecuted Kenneth Bae, an American missionary who had been held by the North for two years for crimes against the state, said another BBC correspondent in Pyongyang, Stephen Evans.

Bae was released in November 2014. North Korea granted visas to an unusually large group of 128 journalists from 12 countries to coincide with the Workers’ Party congress. - Reuters

Wingfi eld-Hayes

had ‘distorted facts

and realities’ in his

coverage, North

Korean offi cial

O Ryong Il said in

announcing that

the reporter, who is

based in Tokyo, was

being expelled and

would never be

let in again RELIEVED: BBC reporter Rupert Wingfi eld-Hayes speaks to journalists after arriving at the interna-

tional airport in Beijing on Monday. - AFP

Panama Papers law firm apologises

to Chinese bank over massive leak

HONG KONG/BEIJING: The law fi rm at the centre of the “Pan-ama Papers” off shore tax haven controversy has written an apol-ogy to a Chinese banking client as it seeks to shore up its Asian business following a massive leak of fi nancial data last month, ac-cording to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.

The letter was written by Mos-sack Fonseca in response to que-ries from the Chinese bank about compliance with global fi nancial standards. It is not known wheth-er there were similar communi-cations with other fi nancial in-stitutions, but the letter shows at least one bank client in the fi rm’s biggest market was concerned by issues raised in the publicity sur-rounding the leak.

In the undated letter to the mid-tier Shanghai-based lender, signed by Mossack Fonseca’s re-gional general manager, the shell company specialist said it “deeply regrets” any misuse of its services or the companies it set up.

“If the unauthorised illegal leaks from Mossack Fonseca company servers have created any inconvenience for (the bank) and your clients, we wish to once again apologise,” it added.

‘Deepened confusion’A Mossack Fonseca spokesper-son said reporting of the leak had “deepened confusion” about the nature of its business.

“As such, we are routinely speaking to our clients and other related parties that have ques-tions to explain that ... nothing in the illegally obtained cache of documents suggests we have done anything wrong or ille-gal,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Leaks from the Panama Pa-pers, named after the law fi rm’s central American home base, have embarrassed some leading politicians around the world with their chronicling of a shadowy world of off shore holdings and hidden wealth.

The source who provided the letter requested that the state-owned bank not be named to protect their identity due to the sensitivity of the subject in China.

A former Mossack Fonseca em-ployee in China said the bank was a major client. Mossack Fonseca has also replaced several key staff in a shake-up of its operations in China, according to a person fa-miliar with the matter and a sec-ond former employee.

Relatives and business associ-ates of eight senior Chinese Com-munist Party fi gures — including President Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law — are named as benefi ciar-ies of off shore holding companies in the leaked documents.

None have made any comment and it was not clear if any were clients of the Shanghai bank.

The letter to the state-owned bank was signed by Maria Mer-cedes Sadowski, who became re-gional general manager for Asia in January 2016, according to her LinkedIn profi le. - Reuters

C O N T R O V E R S Y

Technicians from SWIFT left Bangladesh Bank exposed to hackers: PoliceDHAKA/BOSTON: Bangladesh’s central bank became more vulner-able to hackers when technicians from SWIFT, the global fi nancial network, connected a new bank transaction system to SWIFT mes-saging three months before a $81 million cyber heist, Bangladeshi police and a bank offi cial alleged.

The technicians introduced the vulnerabilities when they con-nected SWIFT to Bangladesh’s fi rst real-time gross settlement

(RTGS) system, said Mohammad Shah Alam, the head of the crimi-nal investigation department of the Bangladesh police who is lead-ing the probe into one of the big-gest cyber-heists in the world.

“We found a lot of loopholes,” Alam said in an interview in Dhaka.”The changes caused much more risk for Bangladesh Bank.”

He and a senior central bank of-fi cial said the SWIFT employees made missteps in connecting the

RTGS to the central bank’s mes-saging platform. The technicians did not appear to have followed their own procedures to ensure the system was secure, according to the Bangladesh Bank offi cial, who said he was not authorised to publicly comment because of the ongoing investigation.

Because of this, SWIFT messag-ing at the central bank was widely accessible, including remote ac-cess with only a simple password,

police said. It had no fi rewalls and only a rudimentary switch.

“It was the responsibility of SWIFT to check for weaknesses once they had set up the system. But it does not appear to have been done,” said the bank offi cial.

SWIFT’s chief spokeswoman Natasha de Teran said she had no comment on the allegations by au-thorities in Bangladesh.

She also declined comment on any aspect of the Bangladesh pro-

ject, including whether the fi rm had deployed any employees or outside contractors to Bangladesh Bank. Reuters was not able to in-dependently verify the allegations by Bangladeshi offi cials about the SWIFT technicians.

If they are validated, however, that could undermine confi dence in the cooperative that is the back-bone of global fi nancial transac-tions. The offi cials in Dhaka dis-cussed their fi ndings ahead of a

meeting this week in Basel, Swit-zerland where Bangladesh Bank offi cials have said their governor and a lawyer appointed by the bank will discuss recovery of about $81 million stolen by the hackers with the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a senior ex-ecutive from SWIFT. Bangladesh Bank offi cials have said they be-lieved SWIFT, and the New York Fed, bear some responsibility for the February cyber heist. - Reuters

C Y B E R H E I S T

Belgium calls up army to helpas guards go on strike in prisons

BRUSSELS: Belgium has called up the military to assist in prisons where guards have been on strike for two weeks over what they say is dangerously low staffi ng due to budget cuts.

Six platoons of 30 soldiers have been mobilised to help police and the Red Cross who are currently at work in prisons in Brussels and the French-speaking region of Wallonia, where prison offi cers are striking. Both the military and police are already stretched, with increased patrols particularly in Brussels, where suicide bombers killed 32 people at the airport and on the metro on March 22.

The justice ministry said that some of the mobilised soldiers had been deployed at the three largest prisons - two in Brussels and one near the city of Liege. Justice Min-ister Koen Geens proposed on Fri-day recruiting 405 new prison of-fi cers this year to bring the total to some 7,000, the level at the end of 2015, and off ering some extra pay for more fl exible working practic-es. Guards in all prisons rejected the proposal, union leaders said on Monday, adding the promised recruitment was inadequate and would still leave the number of of-fi cers down from two years ago.

Conditions in the prisons have worsened and some inmates are not receiving certain basic rights such as showers, three meals a day, family visits and access to lawyers.

Unions have said low staffi ng has limited access to courses and other activities that can help re-duce violence and prevent prison-ers from reoff ending. — Reuters

B U D G E T C U T S

We’re obviously very glad to be out. We’re going to go and talk to our bosses now. But just relieved to be out

Rupert Wingfi eld-Hayes, BBC journalist

A14

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Duterte leads in Philippinespresidential election race

MANILA: Firebrand city mayor Rodrigo Duterte looked virtually certain to become the Philippines’ next president as election results poured in on Monday, confi rma-tion that the political outsider’s pledges to crush crime and corrup-tion had resonated with voters.

Five hours after polling sta-tions had closed, a rolling ballot count by an election commission-accredited watchdog showed that Duterte had about 39 per cent of the votes cast. An exit poll of a small number of voters showed a similar lead. Asked by a televi-sion interviewer what he thought about his apparent victory, Du-terte gave a puzzling answer.

“Sometimes I’m victorious and the winner, sometimes there’s al-ways losing and being sad, some-times being sick and healthy,” he told CNN Philippines, slouched in a chair and dressed casually in a checked, short-sleeve shirt.

“That is how the universe is be-ing played every day.”

ComparisonsThe 71-year-old’s truculent de-fi ance of political tradition has drawn comparisons with US Re-publican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as have his refer-ences to his libido.

His man-of-the-people de-meanour tapped into popular disgust with the political estab-

lishment over its failure to tackle poverty and inequality despite several uninterrupted years of ro-bust economic growth.

His incendiary rhetoric and ad-vocacy of extrajudicial killings to stamp out crime and drugs have, however, alarmed many who hear echoes of the Southeast Asian country’s authoritarian past.

The election numbers reported by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) had, by 1420GMT, accounted for about 70 per cent of the 54 million regis-tered Filipino voters.

Duterte had 12.1 million votes, with Senator Grace Poe and the government’s candidate, Manuel Roxas, far behind with about 6.8 million each.

The PPCRV count is not offi cial

so confi rmation of Duterte’s vic-tory looked likely to come from his rivals conceding defeat. In an early indication of his unortho-doxy, Duterte told reporters on Monday that if he became presi-dent he would seek multilateral talks to resolve disputes over the South China Sea.

The outgoing administration has asked a court of arbitration in The Hague to recognise its right to exploit waters in the South China Sea, a case it hoped could bolster claims by other countries against Beijing in the resource-rich wa-ters. Duterte said negotiations should include Japan, Australia and the United States, which is traditionally the region’s domi-nant security player and contests Beijing’s development of islands

and rocky outcrops in the South China Sea. The presidential race was one of the most divisive in years, with outgoing leader Be-nigno Aquino and rival candidates warning of a disaster if Duterte makes good on his promises. Du-terte talked of making peace with his rivals after a “virulent” cam-paign and reiterated that, as presi-dent, he would give police a green light to use deadly force against criminals.

“If they put up a good fi ght and refuse to surrender and if you feel your life is in jeopardy, shoot. You have my authority,” he said in Davao City, where he has been mayor for 22 years.

At least 11 people were killed in violence before voting started, but otherwise the election was most-

ly smooth with voting machine problems at only a few dozen polling stations. Voters also cast ballots for the vice president, 300 lawmakers and about 18,000 local government offi cials.

“Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of late dictator Fer-dinand Marcos, looked on course to become vice president with a narrow lead as the votes were be-ing counted.

Duterte’s entertaining speech-es, often loaded with profanities, have shed little light on his poli-cies beyond going after gangsters and drug pushers.

He has been vague on what he would do to spur an economy that has averaged growth at around 6 per cent under Aquino.

In a report on Monday, ratings agency S&P Global said a Duterte presidency would create uncer-tainty, especially if he picks fi ghts with the political elite.

“He could take some time get-ting used to the many compromis-es required in the national leader-ship position,” it said.

One indication of that came on Monday as Duterte told reporters he planned to loosen restrictions on foreign ownership of compa-nies across all industries, which could meet with resistance from protectionist forces. One of Du-terte’s economic advisors told Reuters that spending on educa-tion will be lifted to benefi t “disad-vantaged regions” and agriculture and rural development will be prioritised to spread wealth more evenly across the country.

“Everything seems to be in im-perial Manila. He wants to give more attention to the lagging, the backward regions which have been neglected,” said Ernesto Pernia, professor emeritus of economics at the University of the Philippines. Pernia said the pursuit of tax evaders and cor-rupt offi cials should bolster gov-ernment revenues to fund the extra spending. — Reuters

Rivals far behind in

unoffi cial vote count;

city mayor Rodrigo

Duterte proposes

multilateral talks

on South China Sea

Austrian chancellor quits after party revolt

VIENNA: Austrian Chancel-lor Werner Faymann resigned on Monday, bowing to a revolt from inside his Social Democratic Party after it suff ered humiliating elec-toral defeat by a resurgent far right.

Faymann, chancellor since De-cember 2008, paid the price for a series of election losses by his SPO party and its coalition partner, the conservative People’s Party, while the anti-immigration, far-right Freedom Party (FPO) made gains.

After a fi rst-round vote in a presidential election two weeks ago in which the FPO achieved a record score to the embarrassment of the coalition partners, opposi-tion within the Social Democratic Party (SPO) grew into open revolt.

“Do I have full cover... strong support within the party? I must say the answer is no,” Faymann said in a statement on Monday.

“I draw the consequences from this low level of support and step down from my positions as party leader and federal chancellor,” he added, without specifying when the decision would take eff ect.

Conservative Vice Chancel-lor Reinhold Mittelehner will take over in an interim capacity, a spokeswoman for Austrian Presi-dent Heinz Fischer said. Mitter-lehner also said he saw no need for a snap election, news agency APA reported.

Faymann, renowned as a politi-cal survivor, was booed at a party rally on May Day, with opponents in the crowd holding up placards saying “Resign!”

The party’s leadership is due to meet on Monday afternoon to decide on a future course, which could have included replacing Faymann. He had come under pressure from some in his party over his policy of tighter restric-tions on immigration and asylum-seekers - something partly under-taken to counter the rise of the anti-immigration and euroscep-tic FPO. — Reuters

E L E C T O R A L D E F E A T

Acting speaker of Brazil annuls Rousseff ’s impeachment

BRASILIA: The acting speaker of the lower house of Brazil’s Con-gress annulled the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff on Monday and called for a new vote in the chamber.

Waldir Maranhao, who took over as acting speaker last week, said there were procedural fl aws in the April 17 vote in the cham-ber that accepted impeachment charges against Rousseff .

After last month’s lower house vote, the impeachment process was passed to the Senate, where a Senate committee recommended on Friday that the leftist president be put on trial by the full chamber for breaking budget laws.

In a news release, Maranhao said the impeachment process should be returned by the Sen-ate so that the lower house can vote again.

It remained unclear whether his decision could be overruled by the Supreme Court, the Senate or a majority in the house.

Brazilian markets fell sharply after the surprising decision was announced.

Rousseff , who denies wrongdo-ing, has been fi ghting for her po-litical survival for several months as opposition congressmen push aggressively for her ouster. — Reuters

L O W E R H O U S E

Canadian offi cials to inspect fi re-ravaged townLAC LA BICHE (ALBERTA): Canadian offi cials on Monday planned to take their fi rst look at the oil boom town ravaged by the nation’s most destructive wildfi re in recent memory as the blaze turned away from popu-lated areas and cooler weather slowed its spread.

Alberta’s premiere, Rachel Not-ley, was set to lead local offi cials and media on an inspection of oil sands boomtown Fort McMurray, whose 88,000 inhabitants barely had time to fl ee the blaze that broke out on May 1. Notley warned the nation to brace for grim images, with entire neighborhoods destroyed, though the fl ames had moved far enough away from the town to make an in-spection safe, offi cials said.

“The head of the fi re is well away from the community. There’s been some growth, but limited growth, and that’s due to the change in weather,” said wildfi re informa-tion offi cer Matthew Anderson on CBC television. Firefi ghters hoped that cooler, possibly rainy, weather would aid in the battle against the blaze. Temperatures cooled on Monday, with a forecast high of 10C (50°F), down from Sunday’s high of 17 C (63°F), with Environment Canada forecasting a 40 per cent chance of showers in Fort McMurray.

The cool weather was expected to linger through Thursday. Still, much of the province of Alberta in western Canada is tinder-box

dry after a mild winter and warm spring. Alberta’s government said Monday the fi re had consumed 161,000 hectares (395,000 acres), an estimate unchanged from Sun-day. It had expanded to within 40 kilometers (25 miles) of the border of Saskatchewan, a province east of Alberta, but was not expected to

cross into the neighbouring prov-ince, said Travis Fairweather, an Alberta wildlife information offi c-er. Offi cials said it was too early to know when the thousands of evac-uees camped out in nearby towns could go back to Fort McMurray, even if their homes were intact. The city’s gas has been turned off ,

its power grid is damaged and the water is undrinkable. Fort Mc-Murray is the centre of Canada’s oil sands region. About half of its crude output, or 1 million barrels per day, has been taken offl ine, ac-cording to a Reuters estimate. US oil prices fell 1.8 per cent on Mon-day morning.

The inferno could become the costliest natural disaster in Can-ada’s history. One analyst estimat-ed insurance losses could exceed C$9 billion ($7 billion). Nearly all of Fort McMurray’s residents es-caped the fi re safely, although two people died in a car crash during the evacuation. — Reuters

D E S T R U C T I V E B L A Z E

Mocked by colleagues, Cameron argues Britain is safer in EULONDON: Britain needs the Eu-ropean Union to help fi ght IS and rebuff a “newly belligerent” Rus-sia, Prime Minister David Cam-eron said on Monday, making a “patriotic case” for membership that was immediately mocked by a one-time ally.

With just over six weeks to go before a referendum, both sides of the debate are sharpening their arguments, with Conservative for-mer London mayor, Boris John-son, attacking the prime minister

for scaremongering by suggesting that Britain could trigger World War Three if it left the 28-member bloc. Cameron, setting out the se-curity argument for Britain to vote to remain in the EU on June 23, drew on military history, invok-ing the memory of wartime leader Winston Churchill to bolster his case that “isolationism has never served this country well”.

But it was his words that the EU had helped secure peace for 70 years that were seized upon

by “Out” campaigners, who ques-tioned whether he could seriously believe that a British exit, or Brex-it, could see troops on the move in Europe again.

“I want to show that if you love this country, if you want to keep it strong in the world and keep our people safe, our membership of the EU is one of the tools that helps us to do these things,” Cameron told diplomats and campaigners.

“I’m not arguing that the EU alone has kept the peace in Eu-

rope these last 70 seventy years, of course not, NATO has played an absolutely key role ... (but) it’s pretty extraordinary that coun-tries that were fi ghting and killing each other are now fi nding a way to work together.”

WarningHe warned Britain that it could be exposed to greater threats if voters decided to leave the EU, underlin-ing the role of security cooperation after dozens were killed in attacks

by IS in Brussels and Paris. “We see a newly belligerent Russia, the rise of the Daesh (IS) network to our east and to our south the migration crisis - dealing with these requires unity of purpose in the West,” he said. Brexit, he said, would “make cooperation more legally complex and make our access to vital infor-mation much slower”.

Johnson, whom the prime min-ister had once hoped to recruit to his “In” campaign, said the argu-ment was “wholly bogus”.

“I don’t think the prime minister can seriously believe that leaving the EU would trigger war on the European continent, given that he was prepared only a few months ago to urge that people should vote leave if they failed to get a substan-tially reformed European Union,” Johnson told campaigners and journalists.

He said Britain should pull out now to regain its sovereignty and democratic rights, leaving a failing organisation. — Reuters

M A K I N G P A T R I O T I C C A S E

MOVING TOWARDS VICTORY: Presidential candidate Rodrigo ‘Digong’ Duterte talks to the media

before casting his vote at a polling precinct for national elections at Daniel Aguinaldo National High

School in Davao city in southern Philippines, on Monday. – Reuters

INFERNO: A wildfi re burns near Highway 63 south of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, on Sunday. – Reuters

MARKEWWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMT U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6B

Muscat

6,019.51 + 23.90

+ 0.04%

Dubai

3,315.98- 9.82

- 0.30%

Abu Dhabi

4,476.48+ 27.16

+ 0.61%

Saudi Arabia

6,693.91+ 21.43

+ 0.32%

Kuwait

5,364.23- 6.45

- 0.12%

Bahrain

1,105.93 - 5.74

- 0.52%

Qatar

9,855.32+ 125.22

+ 1.29%

CURRENCY RATES* DRAFT RATES (OMR1)* GOLD PRICES*Forex rates vs OMR1*

US Dollar ................................. 2.58

Euro ............................................2.25

Pound ............................................1.78

Indian Rs ............................. 172.56

Pak Rs ....................................267.24

Bangla Taka......................200.84* Rates are as of May 9

Source: Bank Muscat

Indian Rs ...................................172.80

Pakistan Rs ............................. 271.60

Sri Lanka Rs ................................. .N/A

Bangla Taka........................... 203.40

Phil Peso .....................................122.17

* Rates as of May 9 Source: Oman UAE Exchange

Muscat 24ct per gm (OMR) .......16.40

Muscat 22ct per gm (OMR) ....... 15.75

Dubai 24ct per gm (Dh) ............ 155.75

Dubai 22ct per gm (Dh) .............146.25

* Rates as of May 9

Source: Malabar Gold & Diamonds

Type ............................Delivery...........Price

Oman Crude ............. (Spot) .........$42.41

Dubai Crude ............. (Spot) .........$42.21

Murban Crude ........ (Spot) .........$45.01

Arabian Light ......... (Spot) .........$41.46

N.Sea Brent ............... (Spot) ........$44.37

West Texas Int ....... (Spot) ........$43.95

CRUDE OIL PRICE

DIGEST VIDEO

S CA N T H I S Q R CO D E TO I N STA N T LY L AU N C H T H E V I D EO

Top stories in one minute with our new daily Digest

OMAN OIL PRICE RISESOman Crude (July delivery) price rose $1.09 to $42.78 per barrel. The average price of Oman Crude (May delivery) stabilised at $36.34 per barrel, $6.11 higher than April delivery. - ONA

Venture capital companylaunched

MOBIN MATHEW [email protected]

MUSCAT: Oman’s fi rst equity-based venture capital fi rm, Inno-vation Development Oman Hold-ing (IDO), was offi cially launched here on Monday.

Four agencies — State Gen-eral Reserve Fund, Oman Oil Company, The Research Council and Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) — joined to-gether to establish the new ven-ture capital fi rm.

According to a top level of-fi cial, IDO is here to fi ll the gap of a technology and innovation-based venture capital fund in Oman with an initial capital of OMR50 million.

“In Oman, there is wealth of

resources available; there are re-search programmes, private eq-uity. But technology and innova-tion focused venture capital has not been available in the Sultan-ate, so this is the gap we are going to fi ll,” Constantine Demetriou, managing director of IDO, told Times of Oman.

“Our mission is to make ven-ture capital investment in com-panies and start-ups that have innovations, technologies at the core,” he added.

Nurture start-upsThe IDO, which will invest equity capital in world class start-ups, will be used to invest and nurture start-ups that will benefi t the broader Omani economy.

It will use its initial capital to invest in start-ups and also to attract international compa-nies that will utilise the Sultan-ate’s natural and human capi-tal and benefit Oman directly with knowledge transfer and development.

Speaking about the investment criteria of IDO, the managing di-rector said; “we are looking for an investment of OMR400,000 to OMR5,000,000.”

The IDO is planning to invest in the fi elds like energy, technol-ogy, healthcare, food, industries and services. He also asserted that IDO is not looking to invest in any projects without technology and innovations.

“We are not going to fi nance any project in the form of debt, any project without an IP,” Deme-triou said. > B2

Four agencies

— State General

Reserve Fund, Oman

Oil Company, The

Research Council

and Omantel —

joined together to

establish the new

venture capital fi rm

START-UP INITIATIVE: The Innovation Development Oman,

which will invest equity capital in world class start-ups, will be

used to nurture start-ups that will benefi t the broader Omani

economy. - Picture by Jun Estrada/Times of Oman

B2

MARKETT U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

New venture capital fi rm off ers support to start-ups

“Any business looking for invest-ment, which fi ts the investment criteria of IDO, can apply directly on the IDO website: www.ido.om,” he added.

“IDO will capitalise on its highly experienced partners to provide guidance, experience, market knowledge, business de-velopment, and staged funding through the venture development and growth stages until maturity,” he continued.

According to him, there are fi ve stages for the investment pro-cess of IDO and it will choose a small number of companies over certain period of time for invest-ment. Deal screening, meeting the management, due diligence stage, investment approval and fi nalisation are the fi ve diff erent stages of IDO.

“In the fi rst stage, the IDO team will analyse the initial informa-tion submitted and make a deci-sion on whether to proceed or not,” he explained.

“During the second stage, the IDO team will meet the manage-ment of the company and in the third, a confi dential agreement will be signed with IDO and will be followed by detailed due dili-gence questions,” he said.

“A term sheet will be signed and together with the supporting doc-umentation will be submitted to the investment committee in the

fourth stage,” he continued. Speaking about the fi nal stage

of the investment process, he said; “Once legally binding documenta-tion has been initiated, it will be submitted to the BoD for approval and after this the investment will be executed.”

According to Abdulsalam bin Mohammed Al Murshidi, chief executive offi cer of SGRF, IDO will put Oman on the map of inter-national technology investment.

“IDO will put Oman on the map of international technology invest-ment, creating benefi ts in terms of greater international interest in the Omani economy,” he said.

“IDO will represent the tech-

nological investment arm of the government and take part in de-veloping innovative start-ups in accordance with an integrated system combining everything such companies need starting from the concept stage to the ap-plication, and then to the stage of commercialisation,” he added.

They also confi rmed that IDO will act as a late stage commer-cialisation vehicle for start-up companies and will assist them with the expansion of their busi-ness within the region and global-ly. According to them, the venture capital investments are key to as-sist start-ups with their growth and development.

G R O W T H O P P O R T U N I T I E S

< FROM

B1

In the first stage, the IDO team will analyse the initial

information submitted and make a decision on

whether to proceed or not

Constantine DemetriouManaging director of IDO

Saudi Arabia’s new oil minister believes in chasing record output

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia will prob-ably keep producing crude at near-record levels under its newly appointed oil minister, Khalid Al Falih, as the world’s largest export-er sticks with his predecessor’s policy of defending market share against higher-cost shale.

Al Falih, also chairman of the state producer Saudi Arabian Oil Co., said on his fi rst day in offi ce on Sunday that he will maintain the Kingdom’s oil policy. His pre-decessor, Ali Al Naimi, had been leading a policy prioritising sales over prices since 2014, driving

some higher-cost producers, in-cluding US shale drillers, off the market. In so doing, Saudi Arabia boosted output, adding to a supply glut. The strategy is showing signs of succeeding this year, with pric-es gaining more than 60 per cent since tumbling to a 12-year low in January. Saudi could exceed its re-cord output of more than 10.5 mil-lion daily barrels if it pumps more to meet a seasonal surge in domes-tic demand during the summer months, analysts from Emirates NBD and Qamar Energy said. The country, with the world’s second-

largest oil reserves, pumped 10.27 million barrels a day in April.

“If the market considers the ap-pointment as signaling more of the same for Saudi policy, that could allow prices to continue following their gradual trend upward,” Ed-ward Bell, commodities analyst at Emirates NBD, said on Sunday by phone from the Dubai-based bank. Continuity in Saudi policy may be off set by the immediate impact of Canadian forest fi res forcing about one million barrels of daily crude production offl ine, he said.

Saudi Arabia appointed Al Falih

on Saturday to head the newly expanded Ministry of Energy, In-dustry and Mineral Resources. He replaces Al Naimi, a 20-year vet-eran in the post. Al Falih takes over the ministry responsible for most of the nation’s income as the big-gest producer and de facto leader of Opec embarks on an economic overhaul designed to make it less reliant on petroleum.

“Al Falih has been backing the policy, and he had been taking a more public role as a government offi cial in defending the stance,” Mills said. — Bloomberg News

Al Falih, also

chairman of Saudi

Aramco, said on

the fi rst day in

offi ce that he would

maintain its

crude oil policy Khalid Al Falih. - Bloomberg News

Lawmakers in Greece

pass ‘painful’ reforms

ATHENS: Greek lawmakers on Monday passed a package of un-popular pension and tax reforms that the country’s leftist-led government hopes will persuade offi cial creditors to unlock bail-out cash.

The approval came just hours before euro zone fi nance minis-ters were due to discuss Greece’s reform progress and whether it had met terms of a multi-billion euro bailout.

A positive sign-off on the re-form review will unlock more than 5 billion euros to ease Greece’s squeezed fi nances and make debt repayments matur-ing in June and July. Greece also hopes that the signoff will also launch discussions on debt relief.

“We have an important oppor-tunity before us for the country to break this vicious cycle, and enter a virtuous cycle,” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told lawmakers.

Earlier, thousands of demon-strators protested outside parlia-ment. Police used teargas when

isolated groups hurled petrol bombs in a central Athens square.

A combination of social secu-rity reform and additional taxa-tion aims to ensure Greece will attain savings to meet an agreed 3.5 per cent budget surplus target before interest payments in 2018, helping it to regain bond market access and make its debt load sustainable.

The vote was a test of the rul-ing coalition’s cohesion, given its wafer-thin majority of three lawmakers in the 300-seat par-liament. All of the coalition’s 153 lawmakers voted in favour.

Tsipras’ government drew fi re from the political opposition dur-ing the debate, on grounds that the pension cuts and tax hikes will prove recessionary, dealing another blow to a population fa-tigued by years of austerity.

“Mr. Prime Minister, you promised hope and turned it into despair,” said Fofi Gennimata, leader of the opposition PASOK socialists. — Reuters

E C O N O M Y

B3T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

MARKET

Muscat share index crosses 6,000-markTimes News Service

MUSCAT: Shares on the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) surged ahead with the general index crossing a psychological barrier of 6,000 point-mark on Monday.

The market has gained sub-stantially in the recent past, mainly on account of a fi rm trend in crude oil prices in the interna-tional market and reinvestment of a portion of dividend income by investors. This has prompt-ed foreign investors to extend their buying support in the local bourse. The MSM 30 Index – the barometer of market trend – closed at 6,019.51 points on Mon-day, up by 23.9 points over the previous closing.

The major gainers were Na-tional Gas, Raysut Cement, Port Services Corporation, HSBC Bank Oman and Oman Interna-tional Development and Invest-ment Company.

Companies listed on the Mus-cat Securities Market (MSM) must have paid more than OMR350 million by way of cash dividend for 2015.

As many as 130 companies are listed on the Muscat Securities Market, but a section of listed fi rms will not off er any dividend

due to losses. The Muscat bourse witnessed a surge in liquid-ity, which was refl ected in traded volumes, which surged ahead by more than hundred per cent on several days.

The Muscat bourse surged by 8.69 per cent, or 475.3 points, to touch 5,467.72 points in April this year. Market turnover reached OMR126.04 million, with 722.28 million shares changing hands in April. Also, market capitalisa-tion touched OMR17.01 billion by end-April, 2016.

L O C A L M A R K E T

Muscat Securities Market. - Times fi le picture

Order book of Galfar stands at OMR750m

Times News Service

MUSCAT: Galfar Engineer-ing and Contracting Company said that the parent company continues to maintain an order book position in the range of over OMR750 million.

“We are expecting award of some more projects, which are al-ready tendered,” the company said

in its fi rst quarter results.The company bagged projects

worth OMR190 million during the fi rst quarter of 2016, including Yibal Khuff On Plot Construction

project worth OMR114 million in oil and gas sector.

Galfar also noted that the period of the Off Plot Delivery Contract (ODC) of North Oman has been

extended for a further two years till March, 2018.

“Currently, we have signifi cant works in upstream oil and gas for PDO, BP and Occidental. Major road works are ongoing in Taqa –Mirbat, Barka- Nakhal, Jibrin–Ibri and Al Batinah Expressway.”

Also, major civil jobs include a hospital and sewage plant and network. In addition, some 132Kv substations are under construc-tion as well as two harbours. The company is also executing opera-tion and maintenance contracts for water supply.

The company’s strategy con-sultant, Roland Berger, is work-ing closely with the management for the company’s organisational, operational and fi nancial trans-formation. A new organisation and work processes have been agreed upon and are now being implemented. There is a signifi -cant drive on cost reduction and increasing output of resources, i.e., people and plants.

Galfar is expecting

award of some more

projects, which are

already tendered, the

company said in its

fi rst quarter results.

Times News Service

MUSCAT: Galfar Engineer-ing and Contracting on Mon-day said that the company has mandated Bank Muscat’s investment banking for fi nancial advisory and fund raising services.

The board of directors in its meeting held on Sunday has

ratifi ed the agreement con-cluded with Bank Muscat.

“In this respect, we would also like to inform that our earlier disclosure dated March 9 2016 to retain Oman Arab Bank stands withdrawn and the scope of services has been consolidated and assigned to Bank Muscat,” a company statement said.

Bank Muscat to provide fi nancial advisory services

Investec fi nances four Emirates A380sPARIS: Investec Bank’s avia-tion arm made its fi rst foray into fi nancing the Airbus Group A380 superjumbo with a deal to pur-chase four jets operated by Emir-ates before leasing them back to the Dubai-based carrier.

Investec will pay a total of $1 billion for the double-deckers, of which two are new and owned by Emirates, with the other two, fi rst delivered in 2013, being bought from Aviation Finance’s Stellwa-gen Finance, it said on Monday.

London-based Investec, which already fi nances single-aisle and smaller twin-aisle aircraft built by Airbus and Boeing, plans to own the A380s for 12 years before sell-ing them on the secondary market,

Alok Wadhawan, co-head of In-vestec Aviation Finance, said in a telephone interview.

Interest in aircraft purchases has increased as yields from more traditional assets struggle to recov-er to the levels seen before the 2008 credit crunch and global recession.

The price of oil has also buoyed airline earnings, while making the four-engine A380 a more viable prospect, Wadhawan said.

Dollar deal“Aircraft are dollar assets, and in-vestors want dollar exposure,” he said. “And you get steady returns, the assets are mobile, and the se-curity collateral is strong. It also helps that most airlines these days are profi table.”

Investec, whose portfolio of 60 planes includes narrow-body 737s and A320s, as well as twin-aisle 777s, 787s and A330s, put its own money into the superjumbo deal, as well as signing up backers including insurance companies,

pension funds and wealthy Middle Eastern families.

“It’s the structure of the deal and the residual risk at the back end that made this attractive,” Wad-hawan said, declining to speculate about future A380 sales.

Of second-hand demand, in 12 years, “at the right price, and with more units fl ying, I think there would be a market,” he said. There are about 184 A380s operating worldwide today.

Investec, which also owns a 20 per cent stake in Dublin-based Goshawk, with an owned or com-mitted portfolio of 75 smaller planes, used Islamic fi nancing for the two planes built in 2013. — Bloomberg News

$ 1 B I L L I O N J E T D E A L

This has prompted

foreign investors to

extend their buying

support in the local

bourse. The MSM

30 Index closed at

6,019.51 points

on Monday

Renault, Maruti lead India’s auto sales on strong demandNEW DELHI: Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai Motor and Re-nault paced India’s biggest gain in passenger vehicle sales in fi ve months, as new compact SUVs, hatchbacks and minicars drew buyers to their showrooms.

Deliveries of passenger vehi-cles, including sport utility ve-hicles and vans, climbed 11 per cent to 242,060 units last month, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said in New Delhi on Monday. Market leader Maru-ti’s sales rose 16 per cent, Hyun-dai’s deliveries gained 9.7 per cent and Renault’s more than tripled.

Automakers in Asia’s third-big-gest auto market are introducing new models in the fast-growing small SUV and hatchback seg-ments to lure buyers. Maruti en-tered the compact SUV market with the Vitara Brezza in March and Tata Motors introduced its Tiago hatchback in early April. Renault’s Kwid minicar, intro-duced in May last year, was the only model in its segment that posted a growth in sales.

Sentiment among rural buyers may improve after a forecast for above-normal rainfall during the annual June-to-September mon-

soon season, according to Mathur. Buyers in rural India purchase about 35 per cent of cars, SUVs and vans sold in the country.

Sales of cars gained for the fi rst time in four months and SUV de-liveries rose at the fastest pace since November 2012, Vishnu Mathur, director general of the group, said at a press briefi ng Monday in New Delhi. Deliveries of two-wheelers including motor-cycles increased 21 per cent last month, the biggest gain since Sep-tember 2014, as demand rose dur-ing the country’s wedding season, Mathur said. — Bloomberg News

A U T O M O T I V E

– Bloomberg fi le picture

Total to buy French fi rmLONDON: Total agreed to buy French battery maker Saft Groupe in a 950 million-euro ($1.1 billion) deal to expand in clean energy.

The 36.50-euro-a-share of-fer represents a 38.3 percent premium to Saft’s closing price on May 6, the companies said Monday in a joint statement. Saft’s supervisory board unani-mously approved the friendly takeover bid.

“The acquisition of Saft is part of Total’s ambition to ac-celerate its development in the fi elds of renewable energy and electricity,” Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of the Courbevoie, France-based oil company, said in the statement. — Bloomberg News

A C Q U I S I T I O N

READY FOR THE ROAD: Maruti entered the compact SUV market with the Vitara Brezza in March

and Tata Motors introduced its Tiago hatchback in early April. — Bloomberg News

B4

MARKETT U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

MUSCATSECURITIES MARKET

SHARE PRICE BULLETIN FOR MONDAY, MAY 9

REGULAR MARKET .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

OM0000001160 ............NATIONAL GAS ........................................................... 155,321 ............ 83,509......................17 ........... 0.528 ...........0.540 ...........0.528........... 0.538 .............0.492 ........... 0.046 ............. 9.350 ................0.540..............0.540...................0.000 ..................29,590,000 .........0.100

OM0000001418 ............RAYSUT CEMENT ...................................................... 110,026 .......... 138,237..................... 29 ........... 1.240 ........... 1.260 ...........1.240 ............1.255 ............. 1.215 ............ 0.040 ............. 3.292 ................1.260 ..............1.260...................1.280 ................. 251,000,000 .......0.100

OM0000001145 ............PORT SERVICES CORPORATION ....................... 561,500 ......... 142,479..................... 42 ........... 0.245 ...........0.264 ...........0.245........... 0.254 .............0.247 ........... 0.007 ............. 2.834 ................0.257 ..............0.257...................0.260 ..................24,140,160 .........0.100

OM0000001517 ............HSBC BANK OMAN .................................................... 591,885............. 69,771..................... 42 ............0.119 ........... 0.120 ........... 0.116 ............0.118 ............. 0.115 ............ 0.003 ............. 2.609 ................ 0.117 ...............0.115................... 0.117 ................. 236,036,909 .......0.100

OM0000001533 ............OMINVEST ...................................................................... 82,415 ............ 46,887........................7 ........... 0.570 ........... 0.570 ...........0.566 ........... 0.568 .............0.556 ............0.012 ............. 2.158 ................0.566 ..............0.564...................0.570..................361,129,224 ........0.100

OM0000003968 ...........OOREDOO.........................................................................38,460 .............29,691........................4 ............0.772 ........... 0.772 ...........0.772 ........... 0.772 ............. 0.760 ............0.012 ............. 1.579 ................0.772 ..............0.760...................0.772 ................. 502,528,946 .......0.100

OM0000002168 ............AL ANWAR CERAMIC TILES ................................ 23,000 ...............6,082........................3 ........... 0.252 ........... 0.265 ...........0.252........... 0.264 .............0.260 ........... 0.004 ............. 1.538 ................0.265 ............. 0.260...................0.265...................78,200,412 .........0.100

OM0000002820 ...........GULF INVESTMENT SERVICES ......................... 332,300 ............43,723......................17 ............0.135 ........... 0.135 ........... 0.131 ........... 0.132 ............. 0.130............ 0.002 ............. 1.538 ................0.132 .............. 0.132...................0.134 .....................7,767,305 ..........0.100

OM0000004768 ...........AL MADINA TAKAFUL ............................................. 119,700 ...............9,062......................12 ............0.075 ........... 0.076 ...........0.075 ........... 0.076 .............0.075 ............0.001 ............. 1.333 ................0.076 ..............0.076...................0.077...................13,300,000 .........0.100

OM0000003521 ............GALFAR ENGINEERING AND CON. .................. 7,489,542 ......894,109................... 169 ............0.119 ........... 0.120 ........... 0.118 ............0.119 ............. 0.118 .............0.001 ............. 0.847 ................ 0.119 .............. 0.118................... 0.119 ...................34,507,696 .........0.100

OM0000001707 ............OMAN CABLES INDUSTRY .................................... 145,004 .........259,507......................19 ............1.780 ........... 1.810............1.780 ............1.790 ............. 1.780 .............0.010 ............. 0.562 ................1.810 .............. 1.810...................1.820 ..................160,563,000........0.100

OM0000001525 ............OMAN INVESTMENT AND FINANCE .............. 423,830 ............85,910..................... 36 ........... 0.202 ...........0.204 ...........0.202 .......... 0.203 .............0.202 ............0.001 ............. 0.495 ................0.204 .............0.203...................0.204 ..................40,600,000 ........0.100

OM0000002796 ...........BANK MUSCAT ............................................................ 633,187...........257,281....................115 ............0.410 ........... 0.410 ...........0.404 .......... 0.406 .............0.404 ........... 0.002 ............. 0.495 ................0.404..............0.404...................0.406 ............... 1,013,477,605 ......0.100

OM0000004735 ...........SEMBCORP SALALAH ................................................18,000 ...............4,556........................5 ........... 0.253 ...........0.254 ...........0.252........... 0.253 .............0.252 ............0.001 ............. 0.397 ................0.254..............0.252...................0.258..................241,506,703 ........0.100

OM0000002028 ...........GULF INTERNATIONAL CHEMICALS ...............13,651 ...............3,536........................8 ........... 0.259 ........... 0.259 ...........0.259........... 0.259 .............0.258 ............0.001 ............. 0.388 ................0.259 ..............0.257...................0.259.................... 5,439,000 ..........0.100

OM0000001319 ............NATIONAL ALUMINIUM PRODUCTS ...............10,000 ...............2,450........................2 ........... 0.245 ........... 0.245 ...........0.245........... 0.245 .............0.245 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.245..............0.234...................0.245 ...................8,225,005 ..........0.100

OM0000001483 ............NATIONAL BANK OF OMAN ................................. 639,600 ......... 166,250..................... 32 ........... 0.260 ...........0.264 ...........0.258........... 0.260 .............0.260 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.264............. 0.260...................0.264 .................383,443,132 ........0.100

OM0000001749 ............OMAN CEMENT ............................................................36,600 .............18,154........................3 ........... 0.496 ........... 0.496 ...........0.496 ........... 0.496 .............0.496 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.496 ..............0.492...................0.496..................164,112,864 ........0.100

OM0000001962 ............AL MADINA INVESTMENT ....................................... 6,720 .................. 450........................ 1 ........... 0.067 ........... 0.067 ...........0.067 ........... 0.067 .............0.067 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.067 ..............0.066...................0.067................... 13,879,143 .........0.100

OM0000002226 ...........AL JAZEERA SERVICES .......................................... 151,026 ............ 35,098..................... 27 ........... 0.232 ........... 0.238 ...........0.232........... 0.232 .............0.232 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.238 ..............0.232...................0.238................... 14,199,391 .........0.100

OM0000002366 ...........AL BATINAH DEV. INV. HOLDING ........................ 91,833 ............... 9,831......................17 ............0.108 ........... 0.109 ...........0.105 ........... 0.107 ............. 0.107............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.105 .............. 0.105...................0.108 .................... 3,210,000 ..........0.100

OM0000002374............UNITED FINANCE ......................................................... 8,542 ............... 1,170........................ 1 ............0.137 ........... 0.137 ...........0.137 ............0.137 ............. 0.137 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.137 .............. 0.137...................0.140 ...................44,703,537 .........0.100

OM0000002440 ...........AL SHARQIA INVESTMENT HOLDING ........... 1,629,120 ...... 269,021................... 145 ............0.166 ........... 0.168 ........... 0.161 ............0.165 ............. 0.165............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.163 .............. 0.162...................0.163 ...................14,850,000 .........0.100

OM0000002549 ...........BANK DHOFAR ............................................................. 30,000 ............... 7,680........................2 ........... 0.256 ........... 0.256 ...........0.256........... 0.256 .............0.256 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.256 ..............0.256...................0.260 .................434,995,558 .......0.100

OM0000002648 ...........NATIONAL FINANCE ............................................... 109,458............. 15,105......................13 ............0.138 ........... 0.138 ...........0.138 ............0.138 ............. 0.138............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.138 .............. 0.138...................0.150 ................... 37,415,301 .........0.100

OM0000003026 ...........OMAN TELECOMMUNICATION ........................ 538,214 .........879,970..................... 48 ............1.635 ........... 1.635............1.630 ............1.635 ............. 1.635 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................1.635 .............. 1.630................... 1.635 ................1,226,250,000 ......0.100

OM0000003125 ............GLOBAL FINANCIAL INVESTMENT ................ 166,939 ............25,591......................14 ............0.157 ........... 0.157 ...........0.150 ............0.153 ............. 0.153 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.150 ...............0.151...................0.162 ...................30,600,000.........0.100

OM0000003224 ...........RENAISSANCE SERVICES ..................................... 453,400 ......... 140,450..................... 10 ........... 0.304 ........... 0.310 ...........0.304 .......... 0.310 ............. 0.310............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.310 ..............0.306...................0.310 ................... 90,101,817 .........0.100

OM0000003398 ...........BANK SOHAR................................................................ 1,197,120 .......214,269..................... 38 ............0.178 ........... 0.180 ...........0.178 ............0.179 ............. 0.179 ............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.180 .............. 0.179...................0.180 ..................287,205,382........0.100

OM0000004933 ...........AL SUWADI POWER ......................................................4,227 .................. 909........................4 ............0.214 ........... 0.217 ...........0.214 ........... 0.218 ............. 0.218............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.215 .............. 0.215...................0.220 .................155,740,582 ........0.100

OM0000005005 ...........ALMAHA CERAMICS .....................................................9,747 ...............3,986......................12 ............0.410 ........... 0.410 ...........0.404 .......... 0.408 ............. 0.410............-0.002 ........... -0.488 ...............0.404..............0.404...................0.412 ...................21,420,000 .........0.100

OM0000002176 ............AL JAZEERA STEEL PRODUCTS ........................ 456,501 ............ 88,161......................18 ............0.195 ........... 0.196 ...........0.193 ............0.193 ............. 0.195............-0.002 ........... -1.026 ...............0.193 ..............0.194...................0.196 ...................24,105,306 .........0.100

OM0000002572 ...........OMAN OIL MARKETING .......................................... 93,754 .......... 176,258........................ 1 ............1.880 ........... 1.880 ...........1.880 ........... 1.880 .............1.900 ...........-0.020 ............-1.053................1.880 ..............1.880...................0.000 ................. 115,197,000 ........0.100

OM0000002200 ...........AHLI BANK ......................................................................24,319 ............... 4,471........................5 ............0.180 ........... 0.186 ...........0.180 ........... 0.184 ............. 0.186............-0.002 ............-1.075 ................0.186 ..............0.180...................0.186 ................. 262,206,650 .......0.100

OM0000001772 ............AL ANWAR HOLDING............................................... 1,617,600 ....... 381,041................... 134 ........... 0.242 ...........0.242 ...........0.230........... 0.236 .............0.239 ...........-0.003 ............-1.255................0.236 ..............0.236...................0.237................... 35,417,700 .........0.100

OM0000002275 ...........SHELL OMAN MARKETING ................................... 58,152 .......... 108,163........................ 1 ............1.860 ........... 1.860 ...........1.860 ........... 1.860 ............. 1.905............-0.045 ........... -2.362 ...............1.860 ..............1.860...................2.095..................176,700,000 ........0.100

OM0000003000 ...........ALMAHA PETROLEUM PRODUCTS MAR. ..... 184,670 ......... 287,225........................4 ............1.550 ........... 1.620 ...........1.550 ............1.555 ............. 1.600 ...........-0.045 ........... -2.813................1.600 .............. 1.550...................1.600 ..................107,295,000 ........0.100

OM0000001681 ............OMAN AND EMIRATES INV. HOLDING ........... 154,000 ............23,135..................... 10 ............0.151 ........... 0.151 ............0.150 ........... 0.150 ............. 0.157 ............-0.007 ........... -4.459 ...............0.150 .............. 0.148................... 0.151 ................... 18,281,250 .........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 18,409,363...... 4,933,178 ...........1,067 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ......38........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

PARALLEL MARKET ................................................................................................................................................................................. OM0000005963 ...........PHOENIX POWER ...................................................... 236,812 ........... 36,205..................... 25 ............0.152 ........... 0.153 ...........0.152 ............0.153 ............. 0.152.............0.001 ............. 0.658 ................0.152 .............. 0.152...................0.153 ..................223,778,023 ........0.100

OM0000001152 ............OMAN NATIONAL ENGINE. INVT. ........................3,000 .................. 585........................ 1 ............0.195 ........... 0.195 ...........0.195 ........... 0.186 ............. 0.186............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.195 .............. 0.195...................0.200 ..................18,600,000 .........0.100

OM0000001301 ............DHOFAR CATTLE FEED ...............................................2,731 .................. 608........................3 ........... 0.222 ...........0.224 ...........0.222 .......... 0.220 .............0.220 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.224............. 0.220...................0.224 .................. 17,787,000 .........0.100

OM0000001368 ............CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS IND. .................... 85,172 .............. 2,942........................7 ........... 0.035 ........... 0.035 ...........0.034........... 0.035 .............0.035 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.035 ..............0.034...................0.035....................2,975,000 ..........0.100

OM0000002564 ...........AL HASSAN ENGINEERING.................................. 540,000 ........... 53,642..................... 30 ........... 0.100 ........... 0.101............0.097 ........... 0.099 .............0.099 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.097 ..............0.097...................0.100.................... 7,445,592 ..........0.100

OM0000004420 ...........BANK NIZWA ................................................................ 513,769 ............ 39,560......................13 ........... 0.077 ........... 0.077 ...........0.077 ........... 0.077 .............0.077 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.077 ..............0.077...................0.078..................115,500,000 ........0.100

OM0000004776 ...........TAKAFUL OMAN INSURANCE ....................................976 ...................119........................ 1 ............0.122 ........... 0.122 ...........0.122 ........... 0.126 ............. 0.126............ 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.122 ..............0.120...................0.128 ...................12,600,000 .........0.100

OM0000001566 ............OMAN FISHERIES ..................................................... 137,600 ............... 9,010......................11 ........... 0.066 ........... 0.066 ...........0.064........... 0.065 .............0.066 ...........-0.001 ............-1.515 ................0.064..............0.064...................0.065.................... 8,125,000 ..........0.100

OM0000001590 ............MUSCAT FINANCE ..................................................... 92,500 .............11,285........................5 ............0.122 ........... 0.122 ...........0.122 ........... 0.122 ............. 0.124 ...........-0.002 ............-1.613 ................0.122 ..............0.122...................0.125 ...................32,539,301 .........0.100

OM0000004511 ............ALIZZ ISLAMIC BANK.............................................. 947,000 ............ 55,119..................... 28 ........... 0.059 ........... 0.059 ...........0.058 ........... 0.058 .............0.059 ...........-0.001 ............-1.695 ................0.058 ..............0.058...................0.059...................58,000,000 ........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................. 2,559,560 ......209,074...................124 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ......10........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

BONDS AND SUKUK MARKET ...................................................................................................................................................................... OM0000005971 ............B.MUSCAT COMPL. CONVR. B.B.3.5 ..................... 19,065 ............... 1,830........................2 ........... 0.094 ........... 0.096 ...........0.094........... 0.096 .............0.094 ........... 0.002 ............. 2.128 ................0.096 ..............0.096...................0.099....................31,119,515 ..........0.100

OM0000004867 ...........BANK MUSCAT C C B 4.5 ........................................... 10,553 ................1,119........................2 ............0.106 ........... 0.106 ...........0.106 ........... 0.106 ............. 0.106 ........... 0.000 .............0.000 ................0.106 ..............0.106................... 0.110 ...................33,882,124 .........0.100

.............................................SUM: .................................................................................... 29,618 ...............2,949........................4 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................................... TRADED SEC. ........ 2........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

ISIN ......................................SECURITY NAME .................................................................. VOLUME ..... TURNOVER ............TRADES ......OPEN PRICE ......HIGH ............. LOW ........ CLOSE PR. ...PREV. CLOSE...DIFF (RO).........DIFF % ............. LAST PR .....LAST BID .............LAST OFFER ........MARKET CAP .PAR VALUE

O M A N S T O C K S

INDICESIndex .................................................High .................Low ..................... Value ............... Prev . Value.......... Diff ...............Diff %MSM30 Index ....................................... 6,020.39 ...............5,987.55 .................... 6,019.51 ................... 5,995.61 ................. 23.90 ...................0.40Financial Index ..................................... 7,851.58 ...............7,820.83 ....................7,833.63 ................... 7,820.83 ..................12.80 ................... 0.16Industrial Index ................................... 7,268.84 ............... 7,227.43 ................... 7,262.23 ....................7,218.57 ................. 43.66 ................... 0.60Services Index .......................................3,331.93 ............... 3,311.83 ....................3,331.93 ...................3,329.56 ....................2.37 ................... 0.07MSM SHARIAH INDEX.......................889.42 .................. 883.81 .......................889.36 ...................... 886.10 ....................3.26 ................... 0.37

Trading SummaryVolume ................ Turnover ..........Trades .............. Market Cap............. Up ............Down ............. Equal .........Sec. Traded20,998,541 ..................5,145,201 ..................1,195 ................ 17,192,471,780 ................ 17 ......................11 ....................22 .........................50

Egypt plans to start sale of 4G licence

CAIRO: Egypt plans to sell fourth-generation mobile licens-es within two months in a spec-trum allotment that would allow fi xed-line monopoly Telecom Egypt Co. to also off er wireless services in the country, according to a government offi cial familiar with the matter.

Telecom Egypt would start by off ering mobile services using rivals’ networks if it secures one of the 4G licences, said the Tel-ecommunications Ministry of-fi cial, who asked not to be named because the results of a meeting of the national telecommunica-tion regulator held on Sunday are still private.

The plan replaces an earlier one that some mobile operators threatened to fi ght in interna-tional arbitration. Mobile carri-ers, including local units of Voda-fone Group, Orange and Emirates Telecommunications, were concerned that a new competi-tor would eat into their market share, the telecommunications regulator said at the time.

Threats of arbitrationEgypt’s government won’t let the situation escalate into threats of arbitration this time and has been seeking feedback from the carri-ers and working to settle disputes with Telecom Egypt, said Ahmed Adel, Lead Telecom Analyst at Beltone Financial. The 2014 plan to issue a virtual license would have let Telecom Egypt provide mobile services while the exist-ing wireless carriers would have provided fi xed-line services.

Representatives from Voda-fone Egypt and Telecom Egypt said they haven’t received offi cial communications yet from the

government over the 4G licenses. Representatives from Etisalat Misr and Orange Egypt weren’t immediately available to com-ment. Orange Egypt Chief Execu-tive Offi cer Yves Gauthier said in March that if the government allows its fi xed-line operator to off er mobile services, mobile op-erators should be allowed to sell fi xed-line services.

“The development of this of-fering will depend on the pricing for the license for Telecom Egypt as a new operator and how other operators evaluate it,” Adel said. The carriers will also seek some-thing in return for opening the market to another rival, he fur-ther added. — Bloomberg News

Telecom Egypt will start by off ering

mobile services using rivals’ networks if

it secures one of the 4G licences, said the

Telecommunications Ministry offi cial

'Bitcoin has a governance problem'LONDON: As one would-be fa-ther of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency’s lead developers is ex-posing a fundamental fl aw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance struc-ture to achieve this.

The latest bickering erupted af-ter Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin — which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously — but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up.

Wright stopped short of re-neging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseu-donym for the person or people who launched the digital cryp-tocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the repu-tations of bitcoin experts who had believed him.

Bitcoin communityMany members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the iden-tity of Nakamoto “doesn’t, and shouldn’t, matter”.

“Satoshi’s biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn’t require his participation to run,” said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin’s core software developers. “That’s what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It’s like searching for the creator of a system that’s designed not to require a creator.”

While grey-suited central bank-ers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one per-son or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verifi cation of transac-tions — one reason why many peo-ple are attracted to it.

Critics, however, say it needs a “benevolent dictator” or at least some “adults” to manage the ex-pansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transac-tions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users’ requirements, they say.

Mathematical puzzlesTrades are handled by thousands of “mining” computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.

The fi rst computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the comput-ers’ owners cover their costs — largely power bills — and make a profi t. The system also ensures there is no single point in the sys-tem that might fail.

In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be exclud-ed from this magic circle.

One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright’s claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto hand-ed control of bitcoin’s software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator’s identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact.

Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his “commit access” to a shared repository of bitcoin rules.

Initially, these developers jus-tifi ed their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen’s access would be reinstated, he re-sponded: “Heck no”, saying a belief in Wright amounted to “inexcus-able incompetence”.

Andresen admitted to bewil-derment over whether he still believed Wright’s claims. “Ask me in six months; I don’t trust my own judgement right now after

all the drama,” he said on Twit-ter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the “bitcoin civil war”. Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transac-tions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quit-ting, Hearn said that “what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked sys-temically important institutions” had now become “a system com-pletely controlled by just a hand-ful of people”.

Many investors and start-up fi rms remain optimistic about bit-coin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell Uni-versity, said the appearance of in-ternal confl ict was undermining it.

“For bitcoin to retain its value, it’s important to have hope that there’s good management in charge, that there are adults in charge,” Sirer said. “When we see opportunistic moves, that’s a problem.”

But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bit-coin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance.“Over the last cou-ple of years it’s become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach,” Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin con-ference in New York earlier in the week. “Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mecha-nism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade.” Most, how-ever, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other devel-opers — many of whom have writ-ten more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched — would not accept his having ultimate power. — Reuters

M Y S T E R I O U S C R E A T O R

China Inc. waves long goodbye to Hong Kong bourseHONG KONG: As China’s rich-est man Wang Jianlin prepares to delist his main commercial real estate company from Hong Kong, bankers expect more Chi-nese businesses to head back home, irked by the deep discount for shares listed on the territory’s stock exchange.

Hong Kong has been the most popular location for share list-ings from Chinese state-owned and private enterprises for three decades, making it the world’s leading destination for initial public off erings (IPOs). Main-land companies have long been drawn by Hong Kong’s standing as a global fi nancial hub, stable le-gal regime and large pool of insti-tutional investors, but the down-side of those benefi ts is a much lower share price than they could achieve on mainland bourses.

UBS research reportOver two-thirds of shares listed in both Hong Kong and China trade at a premium of more than 50 per cent in the mainland, ac-cording to a UBS research report. That gap has substantially wid-ened since 2014, making it less appealing for companies to raise secondary funds in Hong Kong.

The premium arises because of restrictions on capital fl ows to and from China, which create artifi cially high demand for local stocks. That demand has risen as alternative investments such as real estate faltered in China’s slowing economy.

At least 10 Chinese companies with Hong Kong listings have un-veiled plans to either delist, spin off assets and list them in China or sell a controlling stake to a

mainland-listed company since November 2015. There were only a handful of such deals in each of 2012, 2013 and 2014.

There were still nearly 30 Chi-nese companies that listed in Hong Kong over the same period, but those deals were much small-er, and IPO fund raisings fell 18 percent in 2015.

“Selected Chinese entrepre-neurs will be tempted to delist their companies from Hong Kong if the A/H premiums continue at these high levels,” said Prashant Bhayani, chief investment offi c-er, Asia for BNP Paribas Wealth Management, which oversees $64.5 billion in assets.

UBS has identifi ed 38 Hong Kong-listed Chinese companies with similar characteristics to those recently delisted, using criteria such as negative share price performance since listing, a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple below 30 and where founders own more than 40 per cent of the companies.

The top 10 companies in the UBS list have a combined market value of about $40 billion, and eight belong in the property sec-tor, including Country Garden Holdings Co and Shimao Property Holdings. — Reuters

D E - L I S T I N G

– Bloomberg fi le picture

BITCOINS: A collection of bitcoins stand is arranged for photograph

in London, UK. - Bloomberg fi le picture

The development

of this offering will

depend on the pricing

for the license for

Telecom Egypt as

a new operator and

how other operators

evaluate it

Ahmed AdelLead Telecom Analyst at Beltone

B5T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

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MSE on top in Philips Customer Competition

MUSCAT: Mustafa Sultan Elec-tronics Co. (MSE), one of the pio-neers in electronics and home ap-pliances retail and distribution in Oman, recently won the 1st prize in Philips Customer Competition (Domestic Appliances & Personal Care Category) in the Middle East and Turkey region.

MSE team was felicitated on stage and was given the top award at a glittering award ceremony titled the ‘Stars Night’ with en-tertainment at the world’s lead-ing Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, says a press release.

MSE was adjudged as the ‘Champion team’ based on a year-

long continuous evaluation of all Philips distributors across Middle East and Turkey.

Mustafa Sultan Electronics is the sole distributor of world renowned brands such as Philips, Whirlpool, Haier, WestPoint, Rhoyxon Cook-ers, Bompani, Tecumseh, etc. A wide range of consumer electron-

ics and domestic home appliances are available at its showrooms at Al Khuwair and Ruwi.

MSE’s Service Centre at Wadi Kabir is fully equipped with ul-tra-modern infrastructure and company trained engineers to ca-ter to any of the requirements of the customer.

MSE was adjudged

as the ‘Champion

team’ based on a

year-long continuous

evaluation of all

Philips distributors

across Middle East

and Turkey COVETED AWARD: Satish Moorjani, group CEO of MSE, Anil Kumar Pillai, general manager and P. S.

Thomas, senior sales manager receiving the award. – Supplied image

ISG students shine at 6th International English OlympiadMUSCAT: Indian School Gubra (ISG) students reaped a rich haul of medals and prizes in the 6th International English Olympiad conducted by Science Olympiad Foundation in association with the British Council.

It is indeed a marvellous achievement by the students of ISG who bagged 60 gold medals of excellence and merit certifi cates of excellence, says a press release.

With 10 international rankers to its credit, ISG boasts of won-derful performance of the stu-dents who have made a mark. International Rank 1 awardees are Shreya Shenod, Sabyasachi Choudhury, Arsh Zahid Shaikh and Mansi Deepak of Class III, Simran Khanna of Class IV and Adveteeya Ganti of Class IX who will receive gifts worth Rs1,000 cash prize along with a gold medal.

Pooja Ashokan of Class VII who secured the second rank at the international level will be awarded with gifts worth

Rs1,000 cash prize along with a silver medal.

The Rank 3 awardees to re-ceive Rs1,000 cash prize along with a bronze medal are Farhan Hashim and Israa Shaikh of Class III and Janainah Fazlin Anam of Class IX.

Improving languageThe content of the tests is de-signed to focus on communi-cation and use of English lan-guage. It enables students to improve their acumen and ex-pand their vocabulary.

The performance is rated at the international level, state level and also school level. It also attempts to develop a spirit of competitive-ness among students as there are millions of students across the globe who compete every year to make a mark.

The management and teachers of Indian School Ghubra are proud of the students who have scaled new heights of excellence and con-gratulated them on their success.

A C H I E V E M E N T

Oberoi Al Zorah all set to open this year in DubaiDUBAI: The Oberoi Al Zorah is set to open this year as one of three new luxury properties for The Oberoi Group with two others in-cluding The Oberoi Marrakech, Morocco and The Oberoi Sukhvi-las, Chandigarh.

The Oberoi Al Zorah, a luxury eco-destination resort, only 30 minutes from Dubai Interna-tional Airport, will be nestled in the natural surroundings of Al Zorah which boasts a beautiful long beachfront, azure lagoons, lush mangroves and 247 acres of natural forest with exceptional biodiversity, says a press release.

All three of The Oberoi Group’s luxury hotel openings this year will be located in stunning natural environments and off er impecca-ble standards of luxury and service associated with the group’s world-wide portfolio.

The Oberoi, Al Zorah is nestled alongside a beautiful untouched coastline. Each of the 113 villas, suites and penthouse are elegant and modern with an abundance of

natural light and breathtaking sea views. The spacious and luxuri-ously appointed rooms and suites all have private balconies, while the villas off er terraces and tem-perature-controlled private pools. The Oberoi, Al Zorah in Ajman of-fers al fresco, beachside and indoor dining venues all serving the fi nest cuisine. Synonymous for off ering some of the world’s fi nest spa and wellness experiences, the spa at Oberoi off ers signature therapies as well as a traditional hammam,

a 80–metre pool, a fully equipped gymnasium, and day care facilities for families.

Earlier this year, the group an-nounced two new properties in Qatar – a 250 key luxury hotel in the West Bay area of Doha, and a 148 key luxury serviced apartment located in Lusail, Doha.

Legendary service delivered by an attentive and caring team will make the upcoming luxury hotels the preferred choice for the dis-cerning traveller.

E C O - D E S T I N A T I O N R E S O R T

Sohar fair attracts book loversMUSCAT: Sohar Book Fair was recently opened by Hilal bin Nas-sir bin Abdullah Al Sadrani, Ma-jlis Al Shura member at Safeer Mall Sohar.

The fair boasts of several cat-egories including fi ction and non-fi ction, autobiographies, children’s books, cookery and Is-lamic books. The exhibition will continue until May 15 and would be a regular activity at Safeer Mall Sohar, says a press release.

Sohar Book Fair is attracting a lot of interest from school going children, teachers, scholars and book lovers. The event organiser, Al Batra Bookshop is considered to be one of the leading book dis-tributors and retailers in the Mid-dle East. Al Batra is regular in conducting book exhibitions and brings its own set of expertise to carry it out successfully.

There are more than 10,000 ti-tles on display and it is defi nitely going to bring back the excite-ment of books.

Commenting on the exhibition, Vijay Manwani from Safeer Mall Sohar said, “We are very excited to host the event since it is the fi rst ever Book Fair being organ-

ised in Sohar and at the mall. It is extremely a good opportunity for book lovers and reading enthu-siasts to further their passion in reading and have a fi rst-hand look

on their favourite authors in So-har itself. We are confi dent of the success of the Book Fair and its overture to establishing a reading culture in the society.”

B O O K F A I R

Renowned business consultant

honoured at Oman Tech Awards

MUSCAT: Baby Sam Samuel, a renowned business consultant and entrepreneur, has bagged the coveted gold award in the person-al website category as well as per-sonal Facebook page category at Oman’s fi rst technology awards, the Oman Tech Awards – 2016.

The awards, won for his per-sonal website www.babysam.biz that was launched earlier this year and for his personal Face-book page www.facebook.com/babysam.samuel, were presented at the fi rst edition of the annual event in a glittering ceremony held recently at Shangri-La Barr Al Jissah, says a press release.

Baby Sam Samuel is a manage-ment consultant involved in di-verse entrepreneurial activities; he is the general manager & busi-ness designer for the IT company Intertech as well as organisation mentor for the design house Ad-ventz, Muscat. In a consultative capacity, he plays the role of a brand adviser and business men-tor for a few other start-up initia-tives in Oman as well, while also exploring other possible avenues of entrepreneurship. As senior vice president of Knowledge Oman, he is involved in the initia-tive to spread knowledge and im-

part education and is currently heading the coaching and men-toring unit – a division of Knowl-edge Oman that aims to create and develop social entrepreneurs within the nation. He has also recently assumed a new role as the director of Indian schools in Oman and is director in-charge of Centre for Special Education.

Samuel being a multi-special-ity consultant who dons several hats, his website, www.babysam.biz is a digital space that as-similates Samuel’s varied pro-fi le while also highlighting the specialised services he off ers in turnaround management, busi-ness mentoring, and strategy de-velopment. In addition, the site acts as a means for him to con-nect with his audience and share his thoughts. “I am honoured to receive the award and believe that Oman Tech Awards, a new initiative by ITA would go a long way to promote the use of tech-nology on a day to day basis,” said Samuel.The site is built in a sin-gle page, responsive format with simplistic design and pleasing aesthetics that refl ect Samuel’s style and persona and is a crea-tion of the award winning design house Adventz.

A W A R D

Al Nahdha Overseas bags IMS accreditationMUSCAT: Al Nahdha Overseas, the fl agship company of Al Nah-dha Group was recently awarded an accreditation for successfully implementing Integrated Man-agement Systems (IMS) com-prising Quality Management System i.e. ISO 9001:2015, Envi-ronmental Management System i.e. ISO 14001:2004 and Occupa-tional Health & Safety System i.e. OHSAS 18001:2007 by SQGC, Dubai at a grand function held at Al Nahdha Gardens, Sohar, says a press release.

Speaking on the occasion, Gio-vanni Piazzolla, the director of Al Nahdha Overseas emphasised that ANG always believed in its

motto ‘Committed to serve be-yond your needs’.

Giovanni asserted that secur-ing IMS accreditation was a big step towards achieving the corpo-rate goals of ANG even while en-suring the health and safety of its workforce, providing enough care for the environment and maxim-ising the quality of its services thereby benefi tting its customers who will enjoy more value-added services complying with interna-tional standards.

Deepak Gupta, general manager, ANG (Oman) while sharing his happiness on receiving the cov-eted accreditation stressed that safety shall take precedence over

convenience and the group shall spare no eff orts to ensure eff ec-tive implementation and mainte-nance of these Integrated Man-agement Systems.

Thanking the management and employees of ANG for their coop-eration and support in achieving this milestone, Mohammed Ab-dalla Yarub Al Busaidi, the local partner of Al Nahdha Overseas expressed his confi dence that IMS accreditation will further acceler-ate the growth in terms of business opportunities leading to the crea-tion of more and more employ-ment opportunities, for nationals in particular.

Al Nahdha Group (ANG) is an

Oman based internationally oper-ating group with affi liates spread across the Middle East, India and Italy off ering a broad range of ser-vices. Led by a professional and vi-sionary management, ANG has ris-en from a modest beginning in 2001 and evolved into a trusted business leader in a remarkably short span of time by providing excellent ser-vices to its valued clients.

The main activities of ANG along with its principals in-cludes mechanical, fabrica-tion, machining, refractory, fire proofing, painting, scaffolding, insulation, landscaping services, plant, machineries, vehicles and manpower solutions.

I N T E G R A T E D M A N A G E M E N T S Y S T E M S

TSC picks second promotion winnerMUSCAT: The Sultan Center (TSC) announced the second win-ner of its ‘Win Seven Cars in Seven Weeks’ campaign celebrating.

TSC congratulated Abdul Rah-man Mutlag Alaytee, coupon num-ber 238862 who drove away with the second 2016 Chevrolet Cruze, says a press release.

The retail chain launched its ‘Win Seven Cars in Seven Weeks’ campaign inviting TSC’s shoppers to enter the draw for a chance to win a Chevrolet Cruze every Thursday upon purchase of OMR10 or more at any TSC store till June 8.

There are still fi ve more cars to be won. Shop more and increase your chances to drive away with a new Chevrolet Cruze.

‘ W I N S E V E N C A R S I N S E V E N W E E K S ’

B6 T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

ROUND-UP

Omantel named among top wholesale operators at MVNO World Congress

MUSCAT: Omantel, the fi rst in-tegrated telecommunication ser-vices provider in the Sultanate, has been named among the world’s top wholesale operators at the 2016 Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) World Congress hosted by Informa Telecoms & Media.

Omantel was highly commend-ed and ranked second in the cat-egory of Best Wholesale Opera-tor behind UK provider EE (part of British Telecom Group) at the awards ceremony held in Amster-dam, Holland recently. The recog-

nition is the most recent addition to the growing number of awards and accolades received by Oman-tel within the global telecommu-nications wholesale arena, says a press release.

Commenting on the achieve-ment, Eng. Yasser Redha Said Al Lawati, senior manager of Na-tional Accounts & Interconnec-tion Department of the Wholesale Business Unit at Omantel stated, “We are indeed honoured to con-tinue to be globally recognised as one of the top wholesale operators. In addition to being an acknowl-edgement from the MVNO global community of Omantel’s leading role in this important area of the telecom sector, this is also a recog-nition of our successful strategy in partnering with our MVNOs and developing this business stream together. Today, the market share of Omantel MVNOs is around 16%, which is the highest MVNO market share outside Europe and among the top5 worldwide ac-cording to recent international reports. This refl ects the signifi -

cance of our MVNO partners in thehighly competitive market of Oman. We take this opportunity to thank our MVNO partners who played a major role in achieving this important milestone.”

MVNOs are service providers that do not own their own full-fl edged telecommunications net-work and are known as mobile re-sellers in Oman. Instead, they buy services on wholesale basis from Class I operators such as Oman-tel and packaging the services for retail with their own brand name. Omantel’s extensive partnerships

with MVNOs underscores the company’s new 3.0 transformation strategy which maintains Oman-tel’s position as the digital partner of choice for the years ahead.

Justyna Topczewska, Senior Conference Researcher at Infor-ma Telecoms & Media added, “I am pleased to see that the MVNOs market in the Middle East is pick-ing up and it is great to see that operators like Omantel are inter-nationally recognised for their ef-fort to help this market to grow. I am very happy to announce that Omantel was selected among the best wholesale operators at our annual event. I believe this is because Omantel is the pioneer in hosting MNOs in the Middle East and has a very interesting success story to share. We look forward to continue to work with Omantel in the upcoming events and present their journey on how Omantel along with its MVNOs made it a huge success and sus-tainable partnership.”

Omantel is also a founding partner of the International

MVNOx Association (iMVNOx) and is working closely with the association to share experience and develop best business prac-tices and commercial models to enable the MNO and MVNO partnerships to fl ourish.

According to Frankie Spag-nolo, the founder and director of iMVNOx, “There are global com-panies and then there are com-panies who act globally. Omantel continues to grow subscriber acquisition in their national mar-ket by combining innovation in wholesale with their ambitious global vision. As thought-leaders in the wholesale sector, Omantel is driving unprecedented support for the virtual ecosystem, pushing the boundaries for other wholesale divisions worldwide by actively studying and refi ning their best practices for the most profi table wholesale strategy.”

The introduction of MVNOs in Oman has enabled extended reach to every segment in the market, es-pecially those that were previously untapped. Through MVNO part-

nerships, Omantel has been able to increase itsoverall network mar-ket share to more than 58%, con-trary to the global phenomenon of decreasing share of incumbent operators, thanks to the victorious strategy and the win-win situation created for all partnering parties.

In the international wholesale arena, Omantel is considered as one of the most prominent and competitive wholesale telecom-munication providers in the Middle East region.

In addition, it is one of the leading companies in the fi eld of submarine cable networks com-plemented by direct terrestrial links, which link Asia, Europe and America passing through Oman to meet the international capac-ity requirements of customers lo-cally and internationally, thereby sustaining the company’s leading position among its competitors. Omantel’s wholesale strategy is to be a communication hub in the region and to be the link between the East and West for the region and beyond.

Omantel was highly

commended and

ranked second in

the category of Best

Wholesale Operator

Majid Al Futtaim unveils its plans to increase total investment in OmanMUSCAT: Under the patronage of His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, Minister of Heritage and Culture, Majid Al Futtaim un-veiled its plans to increase its to-tal investment in the Sultanate to OMR705 million by 2020, which includes the development of City Centre Sohar, a new regional mall.

The announcement was made to Omani dignitaries at a launch event which reinforced Majid Al Fut-taim’s commitment to its invest-ments in Oman, says a press release.

Alain Bejjani, the company’s chief executive offi cer and Talib Omar, Majid Al Futtaim’s Oman country head, as well as other Majid Al Futtaim senior execu-tives and Omani employees wel-comed a number of esteemed guests to a gala dinner, following the retail and leisure pioneer’s an-

nouncement. In addition to reveal-ing new developments, the gala evening celebrated Majid Al Fut-taim’s 15 years of investment and relationship-building in the Sul-tanate of Oman.

The company’s current invest-ment strategy includes further new developments, such as Mall of Oman and My City Centre Sur, as well as the next stage of develop-ment at Al Mouj Muscat and the expansion of its existing retail and

entertainment businesses includ-ing Magic Planet, Carrefour and VOX Cinemas.

Creates job opportunitiesMajid Al Futtaim’s planned in-vestments are anticipated to cre-ate more than 42,000 direct and indirect job opportunities in the Sultanate in the next fi ve years. A signifi cant percentage of the management at Majid Al Futtaim’s malls in the Sultanate is made up

by Omani nationals and this num-ber is set to increase once the new malls are completed.

The continued investment in Oman’s retail, leisure and enter-tainment infrastructure by Majid Al Futtaim supports the country’s National Strategy for Tourism 2040, which targets a 6 per cent rise in the contribution of the tourism sector to GDP and a near doubling of visitor numbers to fi ve million annually.

N E W D E V E L O P M E N T S

alizz bank conducts fi rst

draw of ‘Bushra’ account

MUSCAT: alizz Islamic bank, one of the fi rst Islamic banks in the Sultanate of Oman, held the fi rst weekly draw of its latest fi nancial product ‘Bushra’; the Sharia-compliant prize savings account, approved by the Sharia Supervisory Board.

The draw took place at the bank’s headquarters in the Cen-tral Business District area, in the presence of members of the bank’s senior management. alizz Islamic bank uses a very reliable draw system that has been re-viewed by KPMG who expressed satisfaction at its functioning, says a press release.

The weekly prize for the ‘Bushra’ prize savings account is OMR1,000 each for three win-ners, while every month one winner will get OMR25,000, the quarterly prize is OMR50,000 for one winner, and the value of the annual grand draw prize is OMR100,000. All draw prizes are cash, given to winners as gift from the shareholders’ funds.

The Bushra savings account is based on the Islamic principle of ‘Mudaraba’, where the bank pools all clients’ funds together with

its own capital at Sharia-com-pliant investments that generate best possible returns and pre-dicted profi ts. The earned profi t is shared between the bank and its clients according to predeter-mined and mutually agreed-upon ratios. This refl ects the commit-ment of alizz Islamic bank to pro-vide its clients with superior and innovative fi nancial solutions through a diverse range of Shar-ia-compliant savings options.

This comes in light of the previ-ous announcement made by alizz Islamic bank on launching a new rewards savings account, with a minimum deposit amount of as low as OMR100, as well as a free debit card to facilitate their daily transactions. Besides a quar-terly profi t payment, maintain-ing a minimum weekly balance of OMR100 or more will give the account holder an opportunity to enter a weekly draw on cash priz-es organised by the bank.

The benefi ts and facilities of-fered for the ‘Bushra’ account holders also include free services such as online banking, phone banking, and SMS alerts for every transaction.

P R I Z E S A V I N G S A C C O U N T

ahlibank partners with OER-Business Summit

MUSCAT: ahlibank has part-nered with OER Business Sum-mit 2016 as the strategic partner of the most awaited corporate event in the Sultanate.

OER Business Summit 2016 & Top 20 Awards, to be held on May 11 at Grand Hyatt Muscat, will see Oman’s corporate leaders and in-fl uential policy makers explore the potential of government’s diver-sifi cation drive for strengthening the business environment in the

country and creating vital oppor-tunities for Omani businessmen, entrepreneurs and SMEs, says a press release.

Lloyd Maddock, CEO of ahli-bank said, “We are very happy to team up with OER Business Summit 2016 which is one-of-a-kind national platform for Oman’s corporate leaders and infl uential policy makers to discuss the new economic imperative for the Sul-tanate in 2016 and beyond. Our

partnership with the 2016 edition of the summit which explores the potential of government’s diver-sifi cation drive to create oppor-tunities for Omani businessmen and entrepreneurs is part of our eff orts towards contributing to the Sultanate’s vision of becoming a dynamic and diverse economy. We at ahlibank are committed to lead by example; we work for redefi ning banking habits with our conveni-ent and effi cient off erings.”

C O R P O R A T E E V E N T

Double achievement for Al Hassan Group at Oman Tech AwardsMUSCAT: The Al Hassan Group of Companies has been recognised at the fi rst edition of Oman Tech Awards held at Shangri-La Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa recently.

It was a double achievement for Al Hassan when their website www.al-hassan.com won bronze medals in ‘Corporate’ as well as ‘Oil & Gas’ categories in the com-petition, says a press release.

More than 300 entries from dif-

ferent industries competed in the 27 categories. Held under the pa-tronage of Dr Rasheed bin Al Safi Al Huraini, chairman of the Oman Tender Board, the event was at-tended by Ahmed Saleh Baabood, chairman, SJS Group attended as a VIP guest.

Oman Tech Awards is the fi rst event of its kind in the Sultanate of Oman and is themed as Oman’s Technology Event of the Year in-

tended to identify nationwide tal-ent both within the Omani and expatriate working fraternity and award the best talents.

Speaking on the occasion, P. M. Mathew, head-IT, Al Hassan Group said, “Oman Tech Awards aims at recognising national tal-ent within the Omani and expat working community and award the best. We are happy to be a part of it, extremely proud to bag

two awards this time. Al Hassan is ranked among the Top 20 Compa-nies in Oman with strong presence in the corporate and oil & gas sec-tors. It is our resolve to make eff ec-tive use of technology, deriving pro-cess and effi ciency improvement in our operations. This award further reiterates our continued commit-ment to bring about an eff ective user-friendly digital communica-tion platform for our stake holders.”

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McDonald’s backs Oman at Asia’s Youth World Cup

MUSCAT: Young football enthu-siasts, ages 13 -14 years old, were sponsored by McDonald’s Oman (Al Daud Restaurants) at the Asia’s Youth World Cup held in Singapore recently.

The team, comprising Omanis and expatriates, was led by Jay Wynter from Mosaic Sports, Ar-senal Soccer School Oman, says a press release.

JSSL Singapore 7’s is known as Asia’s Youth World Cup. It has been running for four years and attracts over 160 teams (girls and boys) from over 13 countries across Asia, including Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, Phil-ippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indo-nesia and China.

Mosaic Academy, sponsored by McDonald’s Oman, fl ew the fl ag for Oman in the U15 category this year.

Ali K. Daud, development licen-see and president of McDonald’s Oman, said: “We are very proud of the young football players who took part in the Asia’s Youth World Cup in Singapore. It is indeed an achievement for them to have competed with the best young players from all over Asia. McDon-ald’s Oman continuously takes pride in supporting various sports events that promote physical well-being, discipline, self-confi dence

and a competitive spirit.Jay Wynter, who himself, or-

ganised the team from Oman, said: “We are very honoured to have been invited to participate in the Asia’s World Youth Cup by the or-ganisers of the tournament to rep-resent Oman. We had seven Omani players in our squad. The tourna-ment was held over two days from April 30 - May 1.”

“It’s been a wonderful tourna-ment and a great experience for the boys of which they’ve loved every minute. I thought on Day 1, we weren’t at our best for most of it but we still qualifi ed for the main

cup. Day two saw our best perfor-mance as we beat a very strong Japanese academy team 1-0 to take us into the last 8. We lost to a very physical Arsenal Singapore Elite in the quarter fi nal but the boys gave me everything.

“Seven games in two days began to take its toll but it was a spirited eff ort from the boys. I was very pleased with how they’ve done and I’m sure they’ve learned a lot from this trip. We look forward to going back next time. I would like to say a special thanks to McDonald’s Oman for their sponsorship and support,” Wynter concluded.

The team, comprising

Omanis and

expatriates, was

led by Jay Wynter

from Mosaic Sports,

Arsenal Soccer

School Oman

NBO congratulates latest winners of ‘Road to Oman’ golfMUSCAT: National Bank of Oman (NBO) congratulated the winners of the second and third events in golf ’s European Chal-lenge Tour, which culminates in November’s NBO Golf Classic Grand Final in Muscat, says a press release.

The 23-year-old Englishman Jordan Smith completed his fi rst victory on the European Chal-lenge Tour at the Red Sea Egyp-tian Challenge in Egypt, the sec-ond event of 2016, fi nishing on 18 under par overall.

The 31-year-old Scotsman Duncan Stewart then claimed his maiden victory at the Eu-ropean Challenge Tour’s third event of 2016, when he carded

eight under par at the Challenge de Madrid in Spain.

Ahmed Al Musalmi, CEO of NBO, said: “The 2016 European Challenge Tour is already shap-ing up to be an exceptional show-case for golf. We congratulate all the winners on the tour so far, and look forward to welcoming the golf world to Muscat in No-vember for the culmination of the Road to Oman.”

The European Challenge Tour’s ‘Road to Oman’ 2016 in-cludes 28 tournaments across 22 diff erent countries.

It will culminate at the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final from November 2-5 at Almouj Golf, The Wave in Muscat.

E U R O P E A N C H A L L E N G E T O U R

ISWK bags gold at Oman Tech AwardsMUSCAT: Indian School Al Wadi Al Kabir (ISWK) won gold award for its website in the ‘Education & Careers category’, at the Oman Tech Awards competition,which was being competed by other educational and technical insti-tutions in Oman.

Out of fi ve fi nalists, ISWK school website was adjudged as the best by the eminent panel of judges, says a press release.

This event is the fi rst of its kind

in the Sultanate of Oman and is themed as ‘The Technology Event of the Year’.

The award was received by Harshendu Shah, president of the school management committee, Biren Patel, one of the eminent members of SMC, D. N. Rao, prin-cipal and the IT Team comprising Jiju Mathew and Guruarchana Sanjay. John Burke, director of Op-erations, Oman Convention Centre, Oman presented the gold award.

E D U C A T I O N & C A R E E R S C A T E G O R Y

Windorex + Glass & Aluminium expo promises plethora of opportunitiesMUSCAT: Windorex + Glass & Aluminium Oman 2016 – the Sul-tanate’s maiden showcase on the windows, doors, glass, aluminium, facades and sun protection sys-tems industry – opens at Oman International Exhibition Centre next week, spotlighting one of the fastest growing segments of the all-important construction sector.

Organised by the well-known events management fi rm, Glob-al Exhibitions & Conferences (GEC), the three-day expo will be formally inaugurated by Dr Fuad bin Jaff er Al Sajwani, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, on May 16 at 10am, says a press release.

As the fi rst exposition of its kind in the Sultanate, Windorex + Glass & Aluminium Oman 2016 is keenly anticipated by the Sultanate’s con-struction industry, which is a key contributor to economic growth and employment generation. Nu-merous Omani Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) also owe their continued economic well-being and success to this industry.

With its focus on a wide array of products and services associated with the construction industry, Windorex + Glass & Aluminium

Oman 2016 promises to uncork a plethora of opportunities for in-vestment, trade, partnerships and SME development in the Sultanate.

Underscoring the strength of interest in the expo, more than 100 leading brands from 15 coun-tries will be showcased at the event. Reputable local and inter-national manufacturers and sup-pliers of fenestration products and technologies, glass cladding and aluminium façades, innova-tive glazing solutions, sun protec-tion systems, and related prod-ucts and services are also taking part. A notable attraction is the China Glass Pavilion featuring the Asian giant’s formidable tech-nical prowess in glass cladding, glazing and related products.

Windorex + Glass & Aluminium Oman 2016 is targeted at industry professionals and decision mak-ers from all of the disciplines that together make up the vibrant ar-chitectural design and construc-tion industry in Oman. The event will be of signifi cant interest to architects, buildings, interior dec-orators, contractors, developers, fabricators, and those involved in the fenestration industry.

Support for the trade fair has come from a number of leading government and regional trade and industry groups. They in-clude the Oman Chamber of Com-merce & Industry, International Fenestration Forum, the Confed-eration of Construction Products and Services, the German Emi-rati Joint Council for Industry & Commerce, Oman Green Building Council, UPVC Window & Door Manufacturers Association, Ger-man University of Technology in Oman, Sultan Qaboos University and HCT GreenNest Ecohouse.

SponsorsSponsorship support for the maid-en expo has been equally strong. The sponsorship line-up com-prises: Platinum sponsors – My Window and Better Homes; Gold – Tech Windows, Al Mahdotha In-ternational Project and YAAT; Sil-ver: New Home for World Projects, PRO Windows, Dodia Architectur-al Pvt. Ltd, Abadis International, and Silver Global; and Lanyard – Nawa International.

Furthermore, as a platform for learning and information shar-ing, the expo also features free-to-

attend seminars with a roster of experts from GUtech and Sultan Qaboos University taking turns to share their thoughts on issues of pertinent industry interest. The seminars, which will run on May 16 and 17, will focus on ‘Green Building’ and ‘The Future of Sus-tainability in Design, Engineering & Construction in Oman’, among other themes.

For organisers GEC, Windo-rex + Glass & Aluminium Oman 2016 is an exciting addition to its expanding portfolio of trade expos that are helping spotlight invest-ment and trade opportunities in key areas of the economy.

Abdullah Beg, GEC business development director, comment-ed: “Events such as ‘Windorex + Glass & Aluminium Oman 2016’ are important platforms that al-low local players and SMEs con-nect with international manufac-turers, technology providers, and consultants. In the upshot, Oman stands to benefi t not only from the infl ow of knowhow and superior products, but also from an antici-pated impetus to local economic activity that inevitably results from such trade and exchanges.”

3 - D A Y E X P O

Al Injaz bids farewell to Grade XII studentsMUSCAT: The students of Grade XII of Al Injaz Private School were given a grand farewell on Sunday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Fatma bint Abdul Abbas Noo-rani, the director-general for Pri-vate and International schools at the Ministry of Education of Oman, attended the occasion as the chief guest. She honoured the students with certifi cates and tro-phies, says a press release.

Amita Sharma, director of the

school, in her address motivated the students for consistent hard work and thanked the parents for their unstinting support and the teachers for their dedication.

Al Injaz Private School has classes from Kindergarten to Grade XII and follows both the Cambridge and the Bilingual system of education. Registra-tion is open for 2016-17. Details of the school can be seen on the website:www.alinjazschool.com

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Bank Muscat launches social media account

MUSCAT: Bank Muscat, the fl ag-ship fi nancial services provider in the Sultanate, in step with its innovative customer-centric strategy, has launched the fi rst dedicated social media account in the banking sector in Oman for customer service.

Aimed at enhancing custom-er service via social media, the Twitter account is dedicated to

responding to customers inquir-ies and receiving feedback. The interactive customer care Twit-ter account @bankmuscatcare refl ects the latest trends in bank-ing and facilitates real time com-munication with customers, says a press release.

The unique customer care ac-count will be managed by a dedi-cated team in the bank’s customer experience department, who will address customer queries and comments every day between 8am and 8pm. The bank will also utilise the social media account to engage customers through sur-veys, questionnaires and aware-ness campaigns on the bank’s products, services and activities.

Ensuring privacy, Bank Muscat customers will not be required to share any personal information while interacting on the custom-er care account and will be only asked for specifi c information such as name and customer ID through direct messages.

Sheikha Al Farsi, general man-ager - Strategy and Organisational Development, said: “Committed to top-notch customer service, Bank Muscat accords priority for build-ing key relationship with custom-

ers. Aimed at enhancing customer experience, especially with the tech-savvy youth, Bank Muscat is proud to launch the fi rst dedicated social media account for customer service in the banking sector in Oman. The new facility is in re-sponse to the high demand for cus-tomer service via social media as many customers prefer to interact on social media as a main channel of communication. Refl ecting the leadership position, the bank ac-cords priority for value addition and strengthening of relationship with customers.”

Bank Muscat is at the forefront of customer service excellence and strives to continually deliver high quality customer service. The bank deems service excel-lence coupled with innovative products vital to surpass custom-er expectation.

Driven by the ‘Let’s Do More’ vi-sion, Bank Muscat pursues a stra-tegic customer care programme to ensure it is always available to lis-ten and more importantly respond to customer suggestions and feed-back in a proactive way. The bank maintains constant follow-up and regular feedback with customers on how services can be improved.

Aimed at enhancing

customer service

via social media,

the Twitter account

is dedicated to

responding to

customers inquiries

and receiving

feedback

OAB makes business payments easy with new Smart Commercial CardsMUSCAT: As part of its eff orts to grant businesses of all sizes great-er control and convenience when making work related payments, Oman Arab Bank (OAB) recently introduced the OAB Visa Smart Commercial Card.

Effi cient and secure, the cards are designed to reduce adminis-trative costs and simplify the pur-chase-to-pay process while giving

companies enhanced capabilities when managing their business transactions, says a press release.

The Smart Commercial Card, which can be used at any location in the Sultanate, also allows com-panies to easily monitor costs and set spending restrictions with cer-tain suppliers of their choice. Lim-its can be set on a per transaction, daily, or monthly basis while cash

advances and restrictions on au-thorisations can be fi xed with ut-most ease. Furthermore, the OAB Visa Smart Commercial Cards utilise the Verifi ed-by-Visa service for added online security and are equipped with EMV chip technol-ogy, preventing unauthorised use.

Fahd Amjad, general manager - Retail Banking at Oman Arab Bank, said, “The new OAB Visa Smart

Commercial Card are secure, effi -cient and uncomplicated, providing organisations with the perfect tool to streamline their purchasing and procurement practices. Companies can choose to restrict payments to any merchant they choose, whether online or offl ine, by implementing a variety of controls as well as having the ability to monitor the cardhold-er’s activity.” He added, “The intro-

duction of this service is part and parcel of Oman Arab Bank’s com-mitment to off er innovative prod-ucts and solutions that empower customers to manage and enhance their fi nances.”

Ahmed Gaber, Visa GM for Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, said, “We are delighted to partner with Oman Arab Bank in launching the OAB Visa Smart

Commercial Card and bringing in-novative digital payment services to cardholders in Oman. As a global payments technology company, Visa is committed to leading the development of online payment op-tions at a time when more and more consumers in Oman and other parts of the Middle East are switch-ing to cards from cash, both while purchasing online and in person.”

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Injured Amir out, Noorul in

T.K. [email protected]

MUSCAT: Oman’s star of the ICC World T20 Tournament Amir Ali will be missed as the national cricket team embarks on a mission to climb up the ladder in the World Cricket League (WCL).

Oman led by skipper Ajay Lal-cheta will be participating in the WCL Division 5 to be held in Jer-sey from May 21 to 28.

Oman will be vying for honours with teams like hosts Jersey, Tan-zania, Nigeria, Guernsay and Va-nuatu in a 50-over format.

The two fi nalists of the ICC WCL Division 5 will earn a promo-tion to Division 4, which is sched-uled to be played later in the year.

Amir Ali’s man of the match in-nings against Ireland in the World T20 at Dharamsala still wins him rave reviews worldwide and his sheer batting power will be missed by the team in Jersey.

However, Amir Ali, who has a frac-ture in his right hand after suff ering an injury during the Oman Cricket

knockout tournament, has been replaced by Noorul Riaz, another batsman of merit who has proved his mettle in the domestic league.

The replacement was confi rmed by coach and Oman Cricket’s Chief Development Offi cer Duleep Men-dis on Monday.

“Amir is injured and recovery appears remote hence we replaced him with Noorul,” said Mendis.

“Adnan Ilyas and Shuaib Al Balushi have also opted out of the team,” the coach added.

Meanwhile, it was also learnt that Arun Poulose, Mohammed Nadeem and Twinkle Bhandari (the latter was not in the list of probables announced earlier) will not be part of the touring party, which departs on May 15.

“Poulose, Nadeem and Bhandari are not in the fourteen travelling to Jersey, but Zeeshan Siddiqui who replaced Shuaib in the probable list during the training session is

among the list,” confi rmed Mendis.With Sultan Ahmed too not con-

sidered, Swapnil Khadya will don the gloves with vice-captain Jatin-der Singh acting as the second wicket-keeper.

Referring to the team composi-tion, Mendis said: “With all the seven-year and four-year rules of the ICC this is the best available team we can decide upon.”

“Only two players coming un-der the four-year rule can play this

tournament and we thought these are the players who could fi t in,” he added.

Duleep Confi dentOn Oman’s chances of gaining promotion to Division 4, Mendis exuded confi dence, but he off ered a word of caution as well.

“But for Jersey, the other teams in fray are purely unknowns and we cannot approach them as mere pushovers. However, I think we

can make it to the next level,” Men-dis detailed.

In the tournament to be played in a round robin format followed by a knockout stages, Oman are scheduled to start their campaign on May 21 with a match against hosts Jersey. On May 22, Oman will clash with Nigeria and that will be followed by matches against Vanuatu on May 24, Tanzania on May 25 and Guernsey on May 27.

The classifi cation matches as well as the fi nal will be played on May 28.

Fixtures: May 21: Jersey vs Oman; Nigeria vs Tanzania; Guern-sey vs Vanuatu. May 22: Jersey vs Vanuatu; Guernsey vs Tanzania; Nigeria vs Oman. May 24: Jersey vs Tanzania; Guernsey vs Nigeria; Oman vs Vanuatu. May 25: Oman vs Tanzania; Jersey vs Guernsey; Nige-ria vs Vanuatu. May 27: Tanzania vs Vanuatu; Jersey vs Nigeria; Guern-sey vs Oman. May 28: 5th place playoff , 3rd place playoff and Final.

Adnan Ilyas and

Shuaib Al Balushi

opt out, while Arun

Poulose, Mohammed

Nadeem and Twinkle

Bhandari fi nd no

place as Oman heads

to Jersey for

WCL Division 5

The team travelling to Jersey: Ajay Lalcheta (captain), Jatinder Singh (vice-captain), Munis Ansari, Rajesh Ranpura, Sufyan Mahmood, Bilal Khan, Khawar Ali, Zeeshan Maqsood, Aamir Kaleem, Noorul Riaz, Mehran Khan, Swapnil Khadye (wicketkeeper), Vaibhav Wat-egaonkar and Zeeshan Siddiqui

T H E S Q U A D

THINK TANK: Oman Cricket coach Duleep Mendis, centre, assistant coach Mazhar Saleem Khan, left, and team manager Jameel Zaidi.

Skipper Ajay Lalcheta

Barcelona deserve to win ‘Europe’s best league’, says Enrique

MADRID: Barcelona manager Luis Enrique believes his team deserve to win “the best league in Europe” as they aim to clinch La Liga in a potentially thrilling climax to the Spanish season on Saturday.

Although the champions are in pole position to retain the title, however, their old foes Real Ma-drid can cash in on any slip to grab the spoils — and history warns that it is eminently possible.

If leaders Barcelona win their fi nal game of the season, as they should, at 16th-placed Granada, they will secure their 24th La Liga crown.

Yet Zinedine Zidane’s side are just one point behind and if they win at Deportivo La Coru-na, 13th in the table, and Barca fail to beat Granada, Real will grab the title for the 33rd time.

The good news for Barce-lona? They have never lost the title when going into the fi nal round of matches. The bad news? Seven times, a team has leapfrogged the leaders in the fi nal week to capture the Span-ish championship.

That happened most recently in 1994 when leaders Valencia drew 0-0 at Deportivo, a result that allowed Barcelona to climb above them.

This year, though, Luis En-rique is confi dent his team will prevail despite having suff ered a recent absent-minded spell in which they were dethroned as European champions and lost a nine-point lead at the summit of La Liga. — Reuters

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Battle of survival for Dhoni’s Pune against HyderabadVISAKHAPATNAM: It will be a battle of survival for struggling Rising Pune Supergiants when they lock horns against formi-dable title-contenders Sunrisers Hyderabad in an Indian Premier League match, here on Tuesday.

With just three wins out of 10 games, Pune is placed at a lowly sixth spot in the points table, while Hyderabad have been a dominating force in this edition with six wins and three losses to capture the second spot.

For Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men, it has been a demor-alising journey so far as apart from three wins against -- Mum-bai Indians, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Delhi Daredevils -- they have failed to trouble other teams, los-ing four matches at their home ground in Pune itself.

Dhoni also have been left with a depleted side after a spate of inju-ries which led to the return of Faf du Plessis, Kevin Pietersen, Ste-ven Smith and Mitchell Marsh.

Though Pakistani-born Aus-tralian batsman Usman Khawaja and former Aussie captain George Bailey joined the side, they have not been able to make much of a diff erence so far and the Sanjeev Goenka-owned team will need desperately need to do something to keep themselves afl oat.

The Supergiants have been aff ected by the lack of qualify bowlers, who can restrict the op-ponents. None of their bowlers fi gure in the top 15 wicket-takers list this season.

Among batsmen, it has been left to Ajinkya Rahane to do the job as he has scored 417 runs so far and is placed at the third spot in highest run-getters list.

With the team needing to win every match from here on to stay in the hunt, Dhoni and his boys

know very well that any slip up now and they can safely say good-bye to the tournament.

Hyderabad, on the other hand, have been riding on a wave of success with their latest win be-ing against two-time winner and defending champions Mumbai Indians by 85 runs last night at the ACA-VDCA stadium here.

The Sunrisers have been driv-en by the batting prowess of skip-per David Warner, who is placed at the second position in top-scorers list with 458 runs with fi ve fi fties so far.

Shikhar Dhawan too has taken the responsibility and comple-mented his captain in the open-ing slot. Australian all-rounder Moises Henriques too has proved to be an important cog in Sun-risers’ wheels with some crucial contributions.

Having returned to the side af-ter recovering from an ankle inju-ry, Yuvraj Singh too is slowly get-ting into the groove. Hyderabad’s bowling unit too have worked like a well-oiled machine.

Rising Pune Supergiants: Mahen-dra Singh Dhoni (C), Ankit Sharma, Baba Aparajith, Murugan Ashwin, Ravichan-dran Ashwin, George Bailey, Ankush Bains, Rajat Bhatia, Scott Boland, Deepak Chahar, Ashok Dinda, Peter Hands-combe, usman Khawaja, Albie Morkel, Ishwar Pandey, Irfan Pathan, Thisara Perera, Ajinkya Rahane, Ishant Sharma, RP Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Adam Zampa.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner (C), Ashish Reddy, Ricky Bhui, Bipul Sharma, Trent Boult, Ben Cutting, Shikhar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, Bhu-vneshwar Kumar, Abhimanyu Midtun, Eoin Morgan, Mustafizur Rahman, Ash-ish Mehra, Naman Ojha, Vijay Shanker, Karn Sharma, Barinder Sran, T Suman, Aditya Tare, Kane Williamson, Yuvraj Singh. - PTI

I P L P R E V I E W

RCB edge KXIP to stay in hunt

MOHALI: Murali Vijay’s cap-tain knock went in vain as Royal Challengers Bangalore snatched a nerve-wracking 1-run win vic-tory over Kings XI Punjab in an enthralling Indian Premier League encounter, here on Monday.

Chasing a target of 176, KXIP were cruising along with Vijay smashing 89 off 57 balls but Chris Jordan managed to hold his nerves

as he gave away 15 runs in the fi nal over in which the home team need-ed 17 runs. The fi nal scorecard was 174 for four. Needing 4 off the last delivery, Marcus Stoinis (34, 22 balls) could take only two as Virat Kohli was delirious in joy the mo-ment match fi nished.

The win takes RCB to sixth posi-tion with 8 points from 9 games as they still have a chance of qualify-ing for play-off s while KXIP with six points from 10 games look all but out of the tournament.

The last four overs saw KXIP requiring 40 runs with Vijay look-ing in great touch before tragedy struck. It was old warhorse Watson (2/22), who delivered the needful as he dug in a short one and Vijay went for the pull. He could not connect it as Yuzvendra Chahal took a well-judged catch at depe mid-wicket boundary. He hit 12 boundaries and a six. The match just slipped away despite Stoinis cameo.

Hashim Amla (21) and Vijay started on a positive note with the KXIP skipper fi nding gaps with ease. They added 45 runs before Amla tried to pull Watson as Stu-art Binny stationed at the edge of

the circle at mid-wicket timed his jump to perfection to take a good catch. Vijay hit some great shots including a lovely back cut off Watson, an on drive off Binny and a pulled boundary of Chris Jordan.

When Varun Aaron bowled a fast rising delievry, Vijay used the pace to pull it behind square for a six. Along with Wriddhiman Saha (16), he added 43 runs as the pair ran well between the wickets be-fore trouble struck.

Leg spinner Chahal (2/30) dis-missed Saha and an out-of-form David Miller (0) with successive deliveries stumped by KL Rahul.

While Rahul fumbled a bit when Saha missed trying to give Cha-hal the charge, he eff ected a far smoother stumping when the leg-gie slided one across Miller, who tried playing a defensive prod.

From 88 for 1, KXIP were re-duced to 88 for 3 when Vijay tried to take charge as he hit Jordan for a couple of boundaries.

Brief scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 175 for 6 (De Villiers 64, Rahul 42, Cariappa 2-16) beat Kings XI Punjab 174 for 4 (Vijay 89, Stoinis 34 not out, Wat-son 2-22) by one run. - PTI

Chasing a target

of 176, KXIP were

cruising along with

Vijay smashing 89

off 57 balls but Chris

Jordan managed to

hold his nerves

in the fi nal over

Mustafi zur sparks Big Bash League franchise interest

MELBOURNE: Bangladesh’s Mustafi zur Rahman could ig-nite a bidding war between several Big Bash League (BBL) cricket franchises as the prom-ising pacer has caught the eyes of many in Australia.

The 20-year-old is one of the hottest T20 bowlers in the world right now, dominating the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Sunrisers Hyderabad with lively left-arm pace, deceptive slower balls, hostile yorker and cutters. Seven BBL clubs have at least one overseas vacancy; only the Melbourne Stars have already fi lled their quota with English pair Luke Wright and Kevin Pietersen.

The Melbourne Renegades may have got an early jump on their rivals in the race for Mustafi zur.

The Bangladeshi’s IPL coach Tom Moody is a director at the Renegades, who currently have two overseas spots available on their list, although one is ex-pected to be taken by the return of the West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo.

Moody’s close connection with Mustafi zur could be a deal-breaker for the Renegades should they want to sign the 20-year-old.

Renegades’ coach David Sak-er recently expressed a desire to boost his side’s bowling stock after a disappointing campaign last season, which saw them miss the fi nals for the third con-secutive season.

“To be fair, we probably need an overseas bowler.

We’re looking at whether to go down that track or to recruit a bowler from inside Australia,” Saker was quoted as saying by theage.com.au.

Recently described as a “little genius” by Sydney Sixers cap-tain and Sunrisers teammate Moises Henriques, Mustafi zur could also be swayed to the SCG with the Sixers having room for two international signings.

Musatfi zur could be an op-tion to replace legendary all-rounder Jacques Kallis at the reigning champions Sydney Sixers, who are expected to re-sign West Indian all-rounder Andre Russell.

If Mustafi zur does fi nd a team in the BBL he would be the sec-ond Bangladeshi to play in Aus-tralia after Shakib Al Hasan, who turned out for the Strikers and Renegades.

The 20-year-old claimed nine wickets in three matches for Bangladesh in the World T20 in India in March, including a haul of 5-22 against semi-fi nalists New Zealand. - IANS

C R I C K E T

IN DEMAND: Bangladesh

bowler Mustafi zur Rahman.

KNOCK IN VAIN: Murali Vijay captain of Kings XI Punjab plays a shot during his knock against Royal

Challengers Bangalore. – PTI

C3


OTA’s Salman on GCC tennis committeeMUSCAT: Oman Tennis Asso-ciation (OTA) offi cial Salman Al Balushi has become a member of one of the key committees of GCC Tennis Organising Committee.

Salman Al Balushi, a long-serving offi cial and Executive Director of OTA, has been named a member of the Technical Com-mittee of the GCC Tennis Organ-ising Committee.

Salman was included in the technical committee after the GCC tennis body, which is currently headquartered in Kuwait, formed new various new committees.

The main objectives of Techni-cal Committee are to put in place the plans and programmers for GCC tennis competitions and their technical supervision and development.

According to the OTA, Sal-man’s selection is based on his extensive experience in tennis which he acquired through his involvement a number of posi-tions he has taken up throughout his career with OTA.

He has supervised many OTA hosted local championships and competitions and is also experi-enced in the fi eld of tennis devel-opment in the GCC region.

Salman Al Balushi said he was delighted on becoming a member of a key committee of GCC tennis and expressed the hope that he would be able to contribute with his colleagues in promoting ten-nis in the GCC region.

“I take this opportunity to thank and appreciate the OTA board chairman and members for the trust shown in me by se-lecting me for this position. I will spare no eff ort towards develop-ing the game in the region and contributing towards its promo-tion in the upcoming period,” Sal-man Al Balushi added.

T E N N I S

FRiENDi Mobile Summer Cup off to exciting startMUSCAT: The 19th edition of FRiENDi Mobile Summer Cup cricket tournament, organised by Jazz Boys Cricket Club, kicked off in style with exciting action witnessed on the opening day at Al Ghubra Power Plant’s lush green ground.

While the participating teams produced some thrilling moments in all three departments — bat-ting, bowling and fi elding, the or-ganisers lived up to their promise and gave away instant man of the match and special awards to 14 players during the day.

On the day, eight matches were played in the men’s category and six in the women’s tournament.

Al Jarwani Hospitality served lunch for members all participat-ing teams. Both men’s and wom-

en’s fi nals will be played on May 13. The tournament is mainly

sponsored by FRiENDi mobile, Al Hajiry Group, Strabag Oman, Khurshid Trading, Tile Marine, Al Jarwani Hospitality, Al Faisal and The Body Shop.

1st day’s resultsMen’s tournament: Khurshid Beatrice lost to OEC by 5 wkts. Man of the match: Salman (OEC). BHR lost to Royal Chal-lengers by 10 wkts. Man of the match: Nithin (Royal Challengers). Asfandyar lost to Masters by 4 wkts. Man of the

match: Ashfaq (Masters). SS Friends beat Voltas by 45 runs. Man of the match: Iqbal (SS Friends). Manglore United lost to Sialkot Stallions by 5 wkts. Man of the match: Nadeem (Sialkot Stallions). Rang-ers lost to Future Oilfi eld by 6 wkts. Man of the match: Imran Mani (Future Oil-

fi eld). Rahil lost to Klair by 6 wkts. Man of the match: Rauf (Klair). Cheers beat Rain Riders by 53 runs. Man of the match: Tousim (Cheers).

Women’s tournament: Pitch Smash-ers beat ISG Green by 38 runs. Man of the match: Hina (Pitch Smashers). ISM

Strikers beat Sohar Challengers by 12 runs. Man of the match: Sujana (ISM Strikers). Sohar Strikers beat ISG Green by 19 runs. Man of the match: Kavita (So-har Strikers). Sohar Challengers lost to ISG Blue by 10 wkts. Man of the match: Nayan (ISG Blue).

Sohar Strikers lost to Pitch Smash-ers by 8 wkts. Man of the match: Vaishali (Pitch Smashers). ISM Strikers lost to ISG Blue by 9 wkts. Man of the match: Saya (ISG Blue).

May 13 fi xtures: Men’s tourna-ment: Klair XI vs SS Friends (7.30 am), Cheers XI vs OEC (8.30 am), Future Oil-fi eld vs Royal Challengers (9.30 am), Mas-ters XI vs Sialkot Stallions (10.30 am), 1st semifi nal (1.30 pm), 2nd semifi nal (2.30pm), fi nal (3.30 pm).

Women’s tournament: Pitch Smash-ers vs ISG Blue (fi nal – 4.30 pm).

C R I C K E T

NEW ROLE: Salman Al Balushi

Murray, Mauresmo end working relationship

LONDON: Andy Murray and his coach Amelie Mauresmo have agreed to end their two-year work-ing relationship, the British world No. 3 said on Monday.

Twice Grand Slam winner Mur-ray lost the Madrid Open fi nal to Novak Djokovic on Sunday.

“I’ve learned a lot from Amelie over the past two years,” Murray said in a statement. “She’s been a calming infl uence in the team and we’ll miss having her around.

“I’ll take some time to consider the next steps and how we pro-gress from here, but I’d like to thank her for everything she has done, she’s been an invaluable member of the team.”

Mauresmo described working with Murray as being a fantastic experience. “I’ve thoroughly en-joyed being part of the great team of people he has around him,” she said.

“Dedicating enough time along with the travel has been a chal-lenge for me. I wish him and the team well and I hope he goes on to win any more titles.”

The partnership between the two Wimbledon champions — Murray won the men’s singles in 2013 and French former world No 1 Maures-mo triumphed at the All England Club in 2006 — seemed a surprise

alliance when it was announced af-ter the 2014 French Open.

Yet the pair have enjoyed plenty of success with the 36-year-old Mauresmo helping guide the Scot to seven titles and to two Austral-ian Open fi nals.

However, the 28-year-old Mur-ray has not been able to quite reach the peaks he climbed when Ivan Lendl was his mentor, winning

Olympic gold in 2012 as well as the U.S. Open later that summer before his historic Wimbledon success.

Mauresmo has not been regu-larly on the circuit with Murray since giving birth to her son Aaron last August.

She had indicated then that she would have to see how she could cope with being both a parent and a globe-trotting coach. —Reuters

Mauresmo described

working with Murray

as being a fantastic

experience

PARTING WAYS: Andy Murray, right, and Amelie Mauresmo.

Pochettino keen

to bring big

club mentality

to Spurs

LONDON: Tottenham Hot-spur should start behaving like a big team and not worry about north London rivals Arsenal overtaking them in the Premier League, manager Mauricio Po-chettino has said.

Second-placed Spurs, who are two points ahead of Arsenal, need to avoid defeat in their fi -nal league game of the season at relegation-threatened Newcas-tle United to ensure they fi nish above the Gunners for the fi rst time since 1995.

Pochettino, however, is deter-mined not to obsess about local bragging rights and has urged all at White Hart Lane to adopt a similar approach.

“The last few weeks have been tough, (but) we are still in a great position... ,” Pochettino told British media.

“We need to look at ourselves, not at our neighbour,” Spurs manager added. - Reuters

F O O T B A L L

C4


Manis Azad win Al Hail T12 title

MUSCAT: Manis Azad Interna-tional Cricket Team won the in-augural T12 Cricket Tournament organised by Al Hail Cricket Club here recently.

In a keenly-contested fi nal, Ma-nis Azad defeated Denmark Crick-et Team to win the top honours.

Al Hail Cricket Club organised the innovative cricket tournament as part of their eff orts to contrib-ute to the development of cricket in the Sultanate. The new con-

cept has been inspired by a similar tournament “Adelaide T12 Cricket Nations Cup 2016” held recently in Australia by the Darren Lehmann Cricket Academy.

Ushendra Singh, General Man-ager of National Paints Oman, handed over the trophies in the presence of Moula Baksh, Chair-man of the Al Hail Cricket Club.

Moula Baksh said: “It is Al Hail Cricket Club’s endeavour to intro-duce new cricket formats in the

country to improve cricket level as well as bring the local cricket closer to international standards.”

Moula Bakhsh promised more such innovative cricket activities and tournaments in future which will be benefi cial to many aspiring local cricket teams.

The organisers thanked the main sponsor National Paints Oman for their valuable support in successfully organising the new tournament.

C R I C K E T

WINNERS: Manis Azad team pose for a group photo after winning Al Hail T12 cricket tournament.

FRIENDS OF SALALAH LAUNCH DHOFAR PREMIER LEAGUEFriends of Salalah launched Dhofar Premier League T20 cricket tournament on May 6.

The tournament was declared open by Indian Social Club chairman Manpreet Singh and

Anil, MD of Creative Consultancy A total of 16 teams are participating in the tournament.

The title winners will receive OMR 600 and a trophy while the runners-up will take home

OMR 300 and a trophy. — Supplied photo

Platini to quit UEFA after losing appeal

LAUSANNE: Suspended Euro-pean soccer boss Michel Platini will resign as head of governing body UEFA after losing a top level appeal against a ban for ethics violations, but he will continue to fi ght to clear his name.

One of the fi nest players of his generation who went on to be-come a powerful sporting offi cial, Frenchman Platini was suspended after his dealings with fallen world soccer chief Sepp Blatter dragged him into the scandal which en-gulfed the sport’s global governing body FIFA.

Sport’s highest tribunal, The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), upheld Platini’s suspension on Monday, although it reduced the term from six years to four.

“The CAS Panel was of the opin-ion that a severe sanction could be justifi ed in view of the superior functions carried out by Mr. Platini (FIFA Vice-President and UEFA President), the absence of any re-pentance and the impact that this matter has had on FIFA’s reputa-tion,” CAS said in a statement.

The ruling means that UEFA, which has not replaced Platini since he was initially banned in October, will have to elect a new president. UEFA said its Executive Commit-tee would meet on May 18 in Basel to discuss the next steps, adding that no stand-in President would be appointed in the meantime.

No fi gureheadThat decision means European soccer will almost certainly have

no fi gurehead during the Euro-pean Championship, to be held in France over June and July.

Platini has pledged to continue his campaign to overturn the ban.

His only remaining recourse is to appeal to the Swiss federal court, but this can only overturn the verdict if it fi nds procedural irregularities.

“I see this (decision) as a pro-found injustice... As agreed with the national associations I am resigning from my functions as President of UEFA in order to pur-sue my fi ght with the Swiss courts to prove my integrity in this aff air,” Platini said in a statement.

A lawyer for Platini, Yves Wehrli,

said the Frenchman would resign from UEFA “in the coming days”.

The French Football Federation (FFF) said it would respect the CAS decision.

“The FFF nevertheless salutes the work of Michel Platini and the quality of a man who has always worked in the interest of football, particularly while he was UEFA president,” it said.

Platini was banished along with former FIFA President Blat-ter over a payment of two million Swiss francs ($2.08 million) made to the Frenchman by FIFA with Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier.

FIFA’s ethics committee said the payment, made at a time when Blatter was seeking re-election, lacked transparency and present-ed confl icts of interest. Both men denied wrongdoing.

Platini had been favourite to re-place Blatter at the time. Instead, his former general secretary at UEFA, Gianni Infantino, entered the FIFA presidential race and won the election in February.

Platini and Blatter were provi-sionally banned in October while FIFA’s ethics committee investi-gated the case, then suspended for eight years each in December, re-duced to six years by the FIFA ap-peal committee in February. - Reuters

Sport’s highest

tribunal, The Court

of Arbitration for

Sport (CAS), upheld

Platini’s suspension

on Monday, although

it reduced the term

from six years to four

LAUSANNE: Angel Maria Villar, the interim UEFA President, and General Secretary Theodore Theo-doridis are bookmaker Wil-liam Hill’s favourites at 6-1 to replace Michel Platini as head of the European soccer’s governing body.

Michael van Praag and Giancarlo Abete, Presidents of the Dutch and Italian football associations respectively, are also front-runners at 10-1 with former Manchester United

chief executive David Gill an outside chance at 16-1.

Frenchman Platini is to resign as UEFA President after losing a top level appeal against a ban for ethics viola-tions on Monday.

“There will be a number of candidates up for the role of President,” William Hill spokesman Joe Crilly said.

“And this looks as though it will be a hotly contested race just as the FIFA one was,” he added. - Reuters

Villar, Theodoridis emerge favourites

I see this (decision) as

a profound injustice...

As agreed with the

national associations

I am resigning from

my functions as

President of UEFA

Michel Platini

Infantino upbeat ahead of fi rst Congress as FIFA presidentMEXICO CITY: Gianni Infan-tino struck an upbeat tone ahead of his fi rst Congress in charge of FIFA, at which football’s govern-ing body will try to move on from a major corruption scandal and address other problems dogging the sport around the world.

Infantino was elected as FIFA president in February, charged with steering football out of the crisis in which dozens of soccer offi cials from a number of coun-tries indicted in the United States.

The main focus of FIFA’s annu-al Congress, which begins in Mex-ico on Friday, will be bringing its 209 member football associations up to speed with recent reforms designed to stamp out corruption.

“After going through some un-easy times, I truly believe that the organisation is on the verge of an exciting new era and that we can unite to work towards our com-mon goal of developing football across the globe and at all levels,” Infantino said in a statement re-leased by FIFA on Monday.

His leadership must also deal with other problems, including the chronic fi nancial diffi culties and poor administration seen in many parts of the world, far from the glitter of competitions like the Champions League and top clubs such as Barcelona.

FIFPro, the world players’ un-ion, has estimated that only 75 of national associations manage to run a professional league.

Even where these exist, the union has frequently complained about the treatment of its mem-bers, particularly in eastern Eu-rope, saying they are often left unpaid and humiliated when they complain or try to leave.

Jerome Champagne, a rival of Infantino’s for the FIFA job, has warned that football risks losing its global appeal as talent drains towards a small number of Euro-pean clubs. In Nigeria, a judicial tug-of-war has seen rival factions, one led by FIFA-recognised Ama-ju Pinnick and another by Chris Giwa, each claiming to control the national soccer federation.

Major failureAmid the bickering, the three-time champions have failed to qualify for the African Nations Cup for the second time in a row, a major failure for the continent’s most populous nation.

The Brazilian Football Con-federation (CBF) meanwhile remains under the presidency of Marco Polo Del Nero, even though he is among those indict-ed by U.S. prosecutors. Del Nero has denied any wrongdoing.

While the new statutes insist that the national football associa-tions adopt good governance prin-ciples, FIFA does not directly con-trol the FAs and has not said clearly how it plans to make them comply.

Reforms adopted in response to the scandal include setting a maximum term limit of 12 years for senior offi cials and the re-placement of FIFA’s executive committee with a new FIFA Council which will have a purely strategic role.

The governing body’s day-to-day running has been handed to a non-elected FIFA bureau, al-though a chief executive for it has still not been appointed.

The Council will meet for the fi rst time on Monday and one of its fi rst tasks will be to implement a reform to reduce the number of FIFA committees from 26 to seven.

One of these, a stakeholders’ committee that will include repre-sentatives from FIFPro, the clubs and leagues, could prove particu-larly troublesome. Both FIFPro and the clubs have complained they did not have any say in the reforms and welcomed Infantino with some bitter criticism.

The Congress itself will decide on applications for membership from Kosovo and, possibly, Gi-braltar, and will also be asked to approve a revised budget for the 2015-2018 cycle to refl ect Infanti-no’s electoral promises. The budget increases the projected revenue for the 2015-2018 cycle upwards from $5 to $5.65 billion, which Infantino says will be viable once FIFA has restored its credibility. - Reuters

F O O T B A L L

WWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COM

DiningSECTIONC L I F E STY L E T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

Vegetable Lo Mein The simplest stir fry noodles recipe can be made with whatever vegeta-bles you have in your kitchen.

Ingredients• 2 cups wheat fl our noodles• 1 tbsp olive oil• 1 tbsp soy sauce• 1 tbsp red chilli sauce• 1/4 tsp brown sugar• 2 cloves garlic, minced• 1/4 red bell pepper, julienned• 1/4 green bell pepper, julienned,• 1/4 yellow bell pepper, julienned• 1 carrot, julienned• 1/4 cup broccoli, cut into small fl orets• ½ cup white onions, fi nely chopped• ½ cup spring onions, fi nely chopped

Preparation• Cook noodles as per packet instruc-tions, drain, rinse twice, rub 1tsp of oil all over the noodles. Keep it aside. Whisk together soy sauce, red chilli sauce, brown sugar and keep it aside. This takes about 5 minutes. Heat oil in a wok. • Add minced garlic and white onions, sauté for about a minute. Add all the vegetables, cook, stir frequently, until tender or for about 5 minutes. Stir in cooked noodles and cook for 5 minutes more. Add soy sauce mixture, and gently toss to combine. Serve hot.

Chicken Sausage and Spinach FrittataThe classic Italian egg frittata just got a new makeover with chicken sausage and spinach. This simple recipe can spice up your meal in just 15 minutes.

Ingredients• 1tbsp olive oil• ½ onion, diced• 1 small green pepper, diced• 3 eggs• 4 egg whites • 12 chicken sausages (cut into rounds)• 2 large heaping handfuls fresh spinach (about 4 cups)• ½tsp salt• 1/4tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preparation• Set oven to broil on high.• Heat olive oil over medium heat

in a large, oven-safe skillet. Sauté onion and green pepper until softened for about 3 minutes. Add onion and pepper and cook, com-bine eggs, egg whites, salt and pepper in a medium bowl, stirring to combine.

• Add the chicken sausages to pep-pers and onion and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Add eggs to skillet and lightly stir. This takes about 4-5 minutes. Transfer pan to the oven and broil for 5 minutes, until top of frittata begins to brown slightly.

• Slice and serve.

Pasta Aglio OlioPasta Aglio Olio is a traditional and most basic pasta dish, with garlic and olive oil as its star ingredients. It is very quick to put together this dish and needs very few ingredients to make. Hence a life saver for last minute emergencies. Sprinkling Italian breadcrumbs instead of cheese enhances the fl avour of this rustic dish.

Ingredients• Salt• 1 packet of spaghetti pasta• 1/3 cup olive oil• 8 large garlic cloves, cut into thin

slivers• ½tsp crushed red pepper fl akes• ½ cup minced fresh parsley• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese,

plus extra for serving

Preparation• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add

2 tablespoons of salt and the pasta and cook according to the directions on the package. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the pasta cooking water before you drain the pasta. Takes approximately 5 minutes to do this.

• Meanwhile, heat the olive oil over medium heat in a pot large enough to hold the pasta, such as a 12-inch sauté pan or a large, shallow pot. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until it just begins to turn golden on the edges. Don’t overcook it. Add the red pepper fl akes. Carefully add the reserved pasta-cooking water to the garlic and oil and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, add 1 teaspoon of salt, and simmer for about 5 minutes, until the liquid is reduced by about a third.

• Add the drained pasta to the garlic sauce and toss. Off the heat, add the parsley and Parmesan and toss well. Allow the pasta to rest off the heat for 3 minutes for the sauce to be absorbed. Taste for seasoning and serve warm with extra Parmesan on the side or you could garnish with crumbled Italian bread crumbs.

Curried Scrambled Eggs with BroccoliEgg is one such versatile food which can be paired with any vegetable and a delicious recipe can be prepared. Curried Scrambled Eggs with Broccoli is perfect for the days when you are tired after a busy day and don’t want to eat outside. A great time saver in the kitchen and healthy too.

Ingredients• 2tbsp oil• 2 medium sized onion, fi nely chopped• 3 garlic pods, fi nely chopped• 2 medium sized tomatoes, fi nely

chopped• 1 cup broccoli fl orets, chopped into

small pieces• 1tsp turmeric powder• 2tsp red chilli powder• Salt to taste• 3 eggs• 2tbsp coriander leaves, fi nely

chopped

Preparation• Heat oil in a frying pan or skillet and

add fi nely chopped onions.• When onion turns pinkish, add

chopped garlic and sauté till the raw smell of garlic goes away for 3 minutes.

• Once it is done, add the chopped to-matoes and sauté till it turns mushy.

• Add broccoli fl orets and cook them for 7 minutes. Add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, salt and mix every-thing well.

• One by one break the eggs directly into the skillet. Mix well and wait for the eggs to cook.

• Once you see the eggs getting cooked, take a spatula and scramble it in the skillet. Scramble continuously till the eggs are fi nely minced and mixed well with the onion-tomato-broccoli mixture. It takes almost 5 minutes. Adjust salt according to your taste and garnish with chopped coriander leaves and again mix well. Switch off the gas and serve hot.

Black Bean and Corn Quesadillas For a quick and hearty lunch or dinner, these black bean, corn and cheese que-sadillas with salsa are perfect and fi lling.

Ingredients• 1 can black beans, rinsed• ½ can corn• ½ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese•½ cup prepared fresh salsa or a ready made tin• 8-inch whole-wheat tortilla• 2tsp canola oil, divided• 1 ripe avocado, diced

Preparation• Combine beans, corn, cheese and 1/4

cup salsa in a medium bowl. Place tortilla on a work surface. Spread 1/2 cup fi lling on half of each tortilla. Fold tortilla in half, pressing gently to fl at-ten. This takes about 5 minutes.

• Heat 1tsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add quesadillas and cook, turning once, until golden on both sides. It takes approximately 8-10 minutes to make them in batches. Serve the quesadillas with sour cream or a mixed green salad.

Are you short of time or tired of cooking in this sweltering heat? Don’t lose heart. Have dinner served on the table in just 15 minutes with these quick recipes.

Recipes Oneza Tabish

Minute Meals15

FIND-IT-ALLC6 T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

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Asr 3.32pm

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Isha 8.01pm Fajr (Tomorrow) 4.05am

PRAYER TIMINGS

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LISTINGS

LONG DISTANCE BUS TIMINGS (OMAN NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY SAOC) *SUBJECT TO CHANGE

FROM MUSCAT (RUWI)

Dept Destination Arrival Operatingtime time days

QURIYAT - SUR - JAALAN (ROUTE 36)

15:00 Quriyat 16:30 Daily

15:00 Sur 18:00 Daily

15:00 Jaalan 19:30 Daily

TO AL BURAIMI (ROUTE 41)

06:30 Sohar 08:50 Daily

06:30 Buraimi 11:00 Daily

08:00 Buraimi 14:30 Daily via Ibri


13:00 Buraimi 17:40 Daily

16.00 Sohar 18.35 Daily

16.00 Buraimi 20:20 Daily

TO SINAW (ROUTE 52)

17:30 Sinaw 20:50 Daily

TO YANQUL (ROUTE 54)

14:30 Nizwa 16:50 Daily

14:30 Yanqul 19:30 Daily

TO IBRI (ARAQI) (ROUTE 54)


08:00 Al Araqi 12:30 Daily

TO SUR (ROUTE 55)

07:30 Sur 12:00 Daily

14:30 Sur 18:45 Daily

TO FAHUD - YIBAL (ROUTE 62)

06:30 Fahud 10:30 Daily

06:30 Yibal 11:15 Daily

TO MARMUL-SALALAH (ROUTE 100)

07:00 Salalah 20:00 Daily

10:00 Marmul 20:30 Daily



TO MARMUL (ROUTE 101)


SALALAH TO DUBAI (ROUTE 102)

15:00 Dubai 07:00 Daily

TO DUBAI (ROUTE 201)



13:00 Sohar 15:30 Wed,Thur

13:00 Dubai 18:30 Wed,Thur



TO DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (ROUTE 204)

07:00 Fujairah 11.45 Daily

07:00 Sharjah 13.30 Daily

07:00 Dubai 14.00 Daily

TO MUSCAT (RUWI)

Dept Destination Arrival Operatingtime time days

FROM JAALAN-SUR-QURIYAT (ROUTE 36)

05:30 Sur 06:45 Daily

05:30 Quriyat 08:30 Daily

05:30 Ruwi 10:00 Daily

TO AL BURAIMI (ROUTE 41)



13:30 Ruwi 20:20 Daily via Ibri





TO SINAW (ROUTE 52)


TO YANQUL (ROUTE 54)



TO IBRI (ARAQI) (ROUTE 54)



TO SUR (ROUTE 55)



TO YIBAL - FAHUD (ROUTE 62)

12:30 Fahud 13:15 Daily


TO SALALAH -MARMUL (ROUTE 100)





TO MARMUL (ROUTE 101)


DUBAI TO SALALAH (ROUTE 102)


TO DUBAI (ROUTE 201)



13:00 Sohar 16:15 Thur-Fri

13:00 Ruwi 19:10 Thur-Fri



FROM DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH/SHARJAH (ROUTE 204)

16:00 Sharjah 16:30 Daily

16.00 Fujairah 18.15 Daily

16.00 Ruwi 23.00 Daily

CITY CINEMAContact (10 am to 6PM) 24567664 | 68 www.citycinemaoman.netfacebook.com/citycinemaoman

SHATTICaptain America: Civil War (3D) (Action) (PG)Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.3:00, 5:45, 8:30, 9:00 & 11:30PMRobinson Crusoe - (3D) (Animation) (PG)Voice Overs: Ron Allen, George Babbit3:30 & 5:15PMHellions - (2D) (Horror) (18+)Cast: Ron Allen, George Babbit, Laila Berzins11:45PMThe Adderall Diaries - (2D) (Drama) (12+)Cast: Amber Heard, James Franco5:45, 11:45PMThe Man Who Knew Infinity - (2D) (Biography | Drama) (PG)Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons7:30PMI Am Wrath – (2D) (Action |Crime) (12+)Cast: John Travolta, Rebecca De Mornay3:45 & 9:45PMThe Jungle Book - (3D) (Adventure ) (PG) 7:00PM

MUSCAT GRAND MALLThe Jungle Book – 3D (PG) Adventure | 12:00, 3:45, 7:30 PMI Am Wrath – 2D (12+) Action |Crime | DramaCast: John Travolta, Rebecca De Mornay11:45 PMCaptain America: Civil War– 3D (PG12) Action | Adventure| Sci-FiCast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr 12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30 PMGold Class : 3:00, 5:45, 8:30, 11:15 PMThe Man Who Knew Infinity – 2D (PG) Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons9:30 PMRobinson Crusoe – 3D (PG) AnimationVoice Overs Ron Allen, George Babbit2:00, 5:45 PM

PANORAMA MALLCaptain America: Civil War – (3D) (PG) (Action | Adventure| Sci-Fi) VIP LOUNGECast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr3:15, 6:00, 8:45 & 11:30PMCaptain America: Civil War – (4D) (PG) (Action | Adventure| Sci-Fi) MX4D3:00, 5:45, 8:30 & 11:15PMCaptain America: Civil War – (3D) (PG) (Action | Adventure| Sci-Fi) 3:30, 6:15, 9:00 & 11:45PMThe Man Who Knew Infinity - (2D) (PG)Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons7:15PMThe Adderall Diaries - (2D) (Drama |Romance | Thriller) (12+)Cast: Amber Heard, James Franco3:45 & 11:30PMJust the 3 of Us - (2D) (Comedy,) (PG)Cast: John Lloyd Cruz, Jennylyn Mercado5:30PMBastille Day – (2D) (Action) (12+)11:15PMPrecious Cargo – (2D) (Action ) (12+) Cast: Bruce Willis, Claire Forlani9:45PMThe Jungle Book - (3D) Adventure) (PG)

3:15, 5:15, 7:45 & 9:15PM

AZAIBA Captain America: Civil War (3D) (Action |Adventure | Sic-Fi) (PG) Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.3:15, 7:45, 11:50 PMRobinson Crusoe (3D) (Animation) (PG) Voice Overs: Ron Allen, George Babbit3:00, 4:45 PM1920 London (2D) (Hindi) (Horror) (TBC) Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra5:30, 11:30 PM24 (2D) (Action) (PG12) Cast: Suriya Sivakumar, Nithya Menen6:00, 10:30 PMThe Jungle Book (3D) (Adventure) (PG) 3:30, 6:30 PMJacobinte Swargarajyam (2D) (Mal) (Drama) (PG)r9:10 PMBaaghi (2D) (Action) (PG) Cast: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor3:45, 6:15, 8:45, 11:15 PMSupreme (2D) (Telugu) (Action) (TBC) Cast: Sai Dharam Tej , Rashi Khanna8:30 PM

RUWIScreen 11920 London (2D) (Horror / Triller) –TBCCast : Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra 3.30, 9.30 PMBaaghi (2D) (Action) –PGCast: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor6.30 PM

Screen 2Captain America: Civil War (2D) (Action) Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr3.45, 10.30 PM (PG12)The Jungle Book (2D) (Adventure) –PG6.30, 8.30 PMCast : Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba, Bill Murray

Screen 3Baaghi (2D) (Action) –PGCast: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor3.45, 9.45 PM24 (2D) - Tamil (Action/ Sci- Fic) –PG12Cast: Suriya Sivakumar, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Nithya Menen6:30 PM

SURCaptain America : Civil War (3D) (Action | Adventure ) ( PG12 ) Cast : Chris Evan, Robert Downey Jr3:45, 9:20, 11:55 PMJacobinte Swargarajyam (Mal) ( PG ) 11:00 PMCast : Nivin Pauly, Renji Panicker, Lakshmi Ramakrishnan24 (Tamil) (Action ) ( PG12 ) Cast : Surya Sivakumar, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Nithya Menen6:15 PMBaaghi ( Hindi | Action | Romance ) (PG) Cast : Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor3:45, 8:30 PMJungle Book 3D (Adventure | Drama ) ( PG ) 6:30 PM

SOHAR

The Jungle Book – 3D (Adventure) (PG)Cast: Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley3:00, 5:00, 7:00PMBastille Day– 2D (Action) (12+)Cast: Idris Elba, Richard Madden, Kelly Reilly3:00, 11:45PMBaaghi– 2D (Action) (PG)Cast: Shraddha Kapoor, Tiger Shroff3:30, 9:00PMCaptain America: Civil War (Action | Adventure| Sci-Fi) PGCast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson.3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30PMThe Man Who knew Infinity (Biography | Drama) PGCast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Malcolm Sinclair6:15PM24 (Tamil) (Action) PG12Cast: Suriya Sivakumar, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Nithya Menon6:30, 8:15PM1920-London (Hindi) Horror (15+)Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra11:30PMThe Adderall Diaries (Drama |Romance) (12+)Cast: Amber Heard, James Franco, Christian Slater4:30, 11:55PM

Jacobinte Swargarajyam (Mal) PGCast: Nivin Pauly, Renji Panicker9:15PM

BURAIMI

Captain America: Civil War(3D)(Action)PGCast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.4:45, 6:30, 9:05 & 11:45 PMThe Jungle Book(3D) (Adventure) PG6:45PMRobinson Crusoe (3D) (Animation) PGVoice Overs: Ron Allen, George Babbit5:00 PM1920 London (15+) (Crime |Horror | Thriller)Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra11:15PM Baaghi PG (Hindi) (Action| Romance)Cast: Shraddha Kapoor, Tiger Shroff8.45 PMThe Adderall Diaries 12+ (Drama)Cast: Amber Heard, James Franco4:45 & 10:05 PMJacobinte Swargarajyam PG (Mal|Drama)7:30 PMHellions 18+ (Horror)Cast: Chloe Rose, Robert Patrick11:45 PM

SALALAH

Captain America: Civil War (3D) (PG) (Action | Adventure| Sci-Fi) Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr12:30, 3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30PMThe Jungle Book (3D) (PG) (Adventure) 2:30, 6:15PMRobinson Crusoe (3D) (PG) (Animation) 12:45, 4:30PMThe Man Who Knew Infinity (2D) (PG) Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons4:00PM (Biography) I Am Wrath (2D) (12+) (Action) 2:00, 11:55PM1920 London (2D) (Hindi) (15+) (Horror) Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra11:15PMBaaghi (2D) (PG) (Hindi) (Action| Romance)9:20PM 24 (2D) (PG12) (Tamil) (Action)Cast: Suriya Sivakumar, Samantha Ruth6:05PM Jacobinte Swargarajyam (2D) (PG) (Mal) (Drama)8:15PM

CINEMA SCHEDULE CHILDREN BELOW THE AGE OF 3 YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE CINEMA | BOX-OFFICE COUNTER OPENS 30-MINUTES PRIOR TO THE SCREENING OF THE FIRST SHOW

@SHATTI @ RUWI

The Adderall Diaries - (2D) (Drama |Romance) 12+Cast: Amber Heard, James Franco5:45, 11:45PM

1920 London (2D) (Hindi) (15+) (Horror) Cast: Sharman Joshi, Meera Chopra3.30, 9.30 PM

BAHJA CINEMAFilm information 24540856 / Advance Booking

24540855

Website: www.albahjacinemaoman.com

The Adderall Diaries (Drama)

Cast: Amber Heard, James Franco

4.00, 6.00, 10.00, & 11.55 PM

CP No : 1115 (12+)

The Man Who Knew Infinity (Biography /

Drama)

Cast: Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Malcolm Sinclair

4.00, 8.00, & 10.00 PM

CP No: 1116 (PG)

I Am Wrath: (Action / Crime / Drama)

Cast: John Travolta, Amanda Schull

2.00, 6.00, & 11.55 PM

CP No : 1109 (12+)

Take Down: (Thriller)

Cast: Dominic Sherwood, Phoebe Tonkin, Ed

Westwick

2.00, & 8.00 PM

CP No: 1110 (PG12)

STAR CINEMAFilm information 24791641 / 24786776

Website: www.isurf.co.om

Jacobinte Swargarajyam (Mal) (Comedy)

Cast : Nivin Pauly, Renji Panicker and Lakshmi

Ramakrishna

3-30, 6-30 & 9-30 pm Cinema Main

24 (Tamil) (Action \ Thriller

Cast: Suriya, Samantha, Nithhya Menon

3-30, 6-30 & 9-30 pm Cinema-2

Kali (Mal) (Comedy\ Drama)

Cast : Dulquar Salmaan & Sai Pallavi

3-45, 6-45 & 9-45 pm Cinema -3

Manithan (Tamil) ( Comedy)

Cast : Udhayanidhi Stalin & Hansika Motwani

3-45, 6-45 & 9-45 pm Cinema-4

Next Change: Azhar (Hindi), Supreme (Telugu)

Programmes are subject to change

@ PANORAMA MALL

Captain America: Civil War – (4D) (PG) (Action | Adventure| Sci-Fi) MX4DCast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr3:00, 5:45, 8:30 & 11:15PM

WEATHER

450

Maximum

310

Minimum

TEMPERATURE

80-40%RELATIVE HUMIDITY

Send us a colour photograph of the child (below 17 years) whose birthday you are celebrating, along with his/her full name, date of birth, address, telephone number and parents’/your name to Times of Oman, With Love, PO Box 770, PC 112, Ruwi or through e-mail to [email protected]

WITH LOVE

VAANI KRISHNAMay 10, 2007

LIFESTYLEC7T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

A wedding cake is the focus of any wed-ding celebration. The tradition of wedding cake has been going

on for years and it is so important that people will not leave the re-ception till the cake has been cut. A badly chosen wedding cake can ruin the whole wedding day. Wed-ding cake is also the main focus of wedding photographs. Thus, it is important to make an informed choice about your wedding cake. Here are some tips to help you choose the best wedding cake.

•• Couples are often fascinated by wedding cakes with luscious cakes, but you need to remem-ber that each addition and twists and turns will add to the price of the cake. This, it is best to clear out the cost of the decoration

and the added features you want to add to the cake.

• • You need to make sure that the bakers know all the details about your wedding. Since icing are vulnerable to environmental haz-ards and the baker knows about the venue, they will be able to make arrangements so that the cake remains fresh and safe.

• • If you know the best bakery in your city, it is important to just go to them. You can take sugges-tions from your friends and fam-ily members. You can drop in by

the cake shop to talk about their designs, the fl avours they use and the things that you would want to add to your cake. Give them ample time to design and pre-pare your cake. You might also be required to make a deposit to re-serve your cake.

• • Time is an important factor when it comes to making wedding plans. You do not want the cake to be done hurriedly. Thus, you need to ask your wedding cake makers about the time frame that they usually give with regards to wed-ding cake. Thus, you can decide

how long before you need to order to give them ample time to create your wedding cake.

• • Apart from the look of the cake, the taste of the cake is an important factor. They should taste good and for that, do not hesitate for sam-ples of cakes so that you can select the best one among them.

Wedding cakes are an expensive af-fair. Thus, you need to know your budget for the cake well in advance. You need to know the number of guests who will be attending the wedding so that you know how much more money you will need to allocate to the cake budget to cover everyone who will be attending.

Ordering cake should be fun and it is only the best baker who can make the journey of choosing your wedding cake worthwhile. —Courtesy of Artipot

Find Your Dream Wedding Cake

Being a foodie can actually keep you lean

Do you perceive yourself to be a foodie? If yes, chances are that you may end up infl uencing the amount of your intake as well as decrease the risk of becoming obese, often at-tributed to an addiction to food, fi nds new research. According to research-ers, when the study participants were told that they were great food addicts,

they tend to consume fewer calories than those who were told they had low or average score. Further, they also reported greater concern about their eating behaviour, which in turn, reduced the amount of time they spent tasting the foods.

“Our research found that participants who believed them-selves to be ‘food addicts’ reduced the amount of time they were exposed to unhealthy foods and ate less as a result,” according to Helen Ruddock, doctoral student at the University of Liver-pool in Britain. “This appears to be because the perception of being a food addict made them concerned about their eating behaviour,” Ruddock added. The team examined the impact of changing participants’ personal food addiction beliefs on eating behaviour, in two separate studies. Women completed a series of computer tasks about food. On completion, they were given bogus feedback on their performance which indicated that they had high, low, or average levels of food addiction. Their intake of unhealthy foods (chocolate and crisps) was then measured in a taste test. “Our study is fi rst to show that personal beliefs about food addiction can infl uence how much we eat. Further work with a larger sample group and over a longer time period is now needed,” Ruddock said.

Malaysian cuisine is similar to South Indian food

Malaysian cuisine can be termed the closest cousin of South Indian cuisine. Nevertheless, Malaysian dishes taste diff erent, said a top chef at The Raintree, St.Mary’s Road, a star hotel in Chennai, India. That may sound like the advertisement line for a ketchup brand. “It’s diff erent”, but what executive chef Hushmoin K. Pa-

tell says is true. “The ingredients used are similar to South In-dian ingredients. But Malaysians use a lot of shrimp and shrimp paste as a fl avouring agent or for garnishing purposes,” Patell told. Malaysian cuisine is known for its use of spices, shrimp paste, lemongrass, kaffi r lime leaves, cardamom, star anise, fenugreek, galangal, and coconut milk — the last adds a delicious creamy touch. The dishes do not give out the strong fl avour of galangal or lemongrass, as in the case of Thai curries.

The South Indian infl uence in Malaysian cuisine is bound to be with the historical invasion of Srivijaya by Rajendra Chola I, who had also forayed into Indonesia. Subsequently, during the British rule of India many South Indians migrated to Malaysia. Accord-ing to Patell, the Malaysians use a lot of shrimp as the fl avouring agent even in their vegetarian dishes. “They consider meat to be non-vegetarian, while use of shrimp paste as a fl avouring agent or shrimp for garnishing is considered vegetarian,” he said. -IANS

BR I E FS

It is important to pick a spectacular cake

for your wedding that not only looks good

but tastes good as well.

Lychee Ice Cream

Take 2 cups of fresh cream, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup sugar, and boil.

Pour 2 egg yolk mixture into the cream mixture and stir till your get a thicker

consistency. Once you add the egg yolk do not boil as the mixture can curdle.

Take 2 cups of seedless chopped lychees and add it to the mixture.

Overnight freeze it in an ice maker or in a bowl and serve with chopped

lychee toppings.

Lychee Lassi Take 2 cups chopped deseeded

lychees, 2 cup of plain yoghurt, and 1/2 cup sugar or lychee syrup if available. Add 1/4 tsp of cardamom powder and blend until smooth. Strain it and serve

in a tall glass. Add few ice cubes before serving.

LIFESTYLEC8 T U E S DAY, M AY 1 0, 2 0 1 6

Lychee Muffi nsWhisk 3/4 cup refi ned fl our, 1/2 cup

sugar, 1/2tsp baking soda, 1/4tsp cinnamon powder and 1/4tsp nutmeg

powder. In another bowl combine 3tbsp lychee jam, 1 cup buttermilk,

and 1 cup beaten egg. Combine both the mixtures. Add 1/2 cup of fresh

chopped lychees and pour it equally on a greased muffi n cup. Bake at 200ºC for 25 minutes or until the muffi ns

become brownish.

Lychee ChickenHeat 1tbsp oil in a wok

over medium heat. Take boneless chicken pieces, and cook till they are

done. Remove it from the skillet. Mix one cup of orange juice, 3tsp sugar, 1 garlic clove, and boil for 5

minutes. Combine 2tsp cornstarch. Add to the skillet and stir till you get a thick consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Add chopped lychees, 15-

20 pieces , and cook for a while. Pour it over the cooked chicken pieces

and serve.

Lychee SaladTake 15-20 lychees and remove the

seeds. Put them in a bowl and drizzle 2tbsp fresh lime juice over them. Add 2tbsp chopped cucumber and 1tbsp of chopped cilantro and toss them well.

Serve immediately, garnished with lime zest.

Lychee Summer is in full swing and sweet and

juicy lychees are available in plenty.

While we all love to eat them fresh, try

these recipes for a diff erent fl avour.

ONE

INGREDIENT

FIVE WAYS

INGREDIENT

W W W.T I M E S O F O M A N . C O MSECTION

CONNECT H E D A I LY G U I D E

D

D4 VACANCY CARGO D7

T U E S D AY, M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 6

RENT D2

Nassar Hilal 5x9

*Tourist visa arranged

Email: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461

FOR RENT

D2 T U E S D AY, M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 6

DAILY GUIDE

3 BHK, 3 toilets near Indian School

main Wadi Kabir & 2 BHK, 2 toilet

near Honda road Junction.

Contact: 99737562

Offi ce 55 SQ. Mtrs & 2 B /R new

bldg in Bausher behind bank Mus-

cat from owner. Contact: 92158031

3 Rooms, 2 Toilets Flat for Rent.

18 November Street. Near Mars

Hypermarket and The Chedi.

Ghobrah -Good for Commercial or

Residential use. OMR 295/- month.

Call 94477222

Deluxe 1 & 2 bedroom fl ats, ideal

for offi ce / residence at Qurum

near PDO. Contact: 97721313 /

95070421

1BHK near Medical Darsait R.O 170/-

Contact: 95076261

2BHK available Mumtaz area

Ruwi, Ghubra near Al Maha Hotel.

Contact: 99269751

New villa for rent Al Hail North

next to Ramez 2 minutes to main

road, 1 open sitting room, 3 family

hall, 1 dining room, kitchen with

store laundry, 4 bed rooms & 1

small room. Contact: 93387732

Flat for rent Al Hail North to the

Wave Muscat ground fl oor with

furniture the price RO 250/-.

Contact: 99353433

Flats, shops & store for rent in

MBD area Ruwi, Mumtaz area.

Contact: 97293708 / 92433127

1000 sq mtrs industrial land for

rent in Ghala suitable for ware-

house workshop etc.

Contact 24700120 / 92584715

1 BHK and 2BHK Flats available

near Lulu Darsait (Main road, Opp. to

Min. of Defense). Contact : 93202733

Flat for rent : fl at available at Hamri-

ya & Wadi Kabir. Contact: 97380548

/ 99680499

2 bedrooms fl at with hall, 2

bathrooms in Darsait near Muscat

Municipality. Contact: 92584715/

24700120

1 BHK fl at in Ruwi MBD for 220/-

available. Contact: 96491825

3 BHK fully furnish Villa in Qurum

heights. Contact 99792181

1BHK & Single Room Spacious Flat

Near Jibro Round About On Main

Road Tel:24815012

Mob:99373290

1BHK near Oman house behind

Khimji HO. Contact: 95865686

4 BHK Villa in Bowsher Heights.

Contact 99792181

2 BHK fl at in Ghobra 18 November

Street. Contact 99792181

Flat for rent 2 BHK 2 split A/C, 2

toilets, Wadi Kabir near Kuwaiti

Masjid. Contact – 97007934 /

92609232

2 BHK fl at in Al Khuwair.

Contact 99792181

150 + 180 + 200 Sqr mtrs offi ce in

Al Khuwair. Contact 99792181

2BHK spacious Flat Behind Bank

Muscat Wadi Kabir Tel:24815012

Mob:99373290

7 room villa at split AC 18th No-

vember road Azaiba.

Contact: 99224748 / 99332297

2 BHK at Al Mawaleh South near

Masjid Sadiq Al Amin.

Contact: 99224748 / 99332297

Flat for rent at Al Amerat at H.One

mortaff at , 2 rooms, toilet kitchen.

Contact: 99313344

Brand new villas in Al Ansab.

Contact 94051789 / 97201688

1BHK at Hamriya near Muscat

Pharmacy & 2 BHK at Mawaleh

near Mosque Sadiq Al Amin.

Contact: 99224748 / 99332297

Flats in Darsait. Contact

94051789 / 97201688

Flats in Wadi Kabir. Contact

94051789 / 97201688

Fully Furnished apartments in

Boucher (35). Contact 94051789 /

97201688

Flats in Muttrah. Contact

94051789 / 97201688

Offi ces and Flats in Ghala.

Contact 94051789 / 97201688

Offi ces & Showrooms in Al Khood.

Contact 94051789 / 97201688

Flats In Qurum. Contact 94051789

/ 97201688

Flats in Ghobrah. Contact

94051789 / 97201688

Shops / fl ats available in Honda

Road, Ruwi & Mabellah Indus-

trial area. Contact 24833972/

24833974/ 99367448

2BHK split A/C for rent Muttrah

near Oman House.

Contact: 97007934 / 92629232

Flat for rent in Al Khuwair 33.

Contact: 92277419

1 BHK fl at for rent R.O 180/-

Near Medical Darsait.

Contact: 24705742

2 BHK fl at at Ruwi Mumtaz area

RO 320/-. Contact: 99358589 /

97079146 / 95570288

2BHK split A/C for rent Muttrah

near Oman House.

Contact: 97007934 / 92629232

1BHK Studio fl at near Star Cinema

RO 180/-. Contact: 99358589 /

97079146 / 95570288

For rent fl at in Darsait offi ce CBD.

Contact: 95345909 / 92820734

3 Bedroom well maintained fl at

(villa TYPE only 2 fl ats in villa)

in Al Khuwair, Behind Al Akhtam

Restaurant Villa No 1841, Way No

3922 Block No 239.

Contact: 99462980

Room or apartment for rent in

Qurum. Contact: 99664703

Flat for rent in Ruwi, Mumtaz area

2 bedrooms. Contact: 24291500 /

91409667

Offi ce for rent in Mabela. Contact: 99355330

1 BHK in Azaiba. Contact:

99385835 / 99428143

Flat for Rent 2 bed room Near ISM

muscat Indian Scoole Dar sate

Tel : 00 968 95158570

Flat for rent in South Mabela.

Contact: 95331177 / 95230355

Offi ce space small in Azaiba.

Contact: 99428143

Brand new double bed room fl ats

with two and three toilets, split ac,

elevators available at Al Khoudh

next to Al koudh health center.

Contact 99022675

Furnished offi ce (61M2) for sale

/ rent Al Khuwair near Zawawi

Mosque. Contact: 95611569

Warehouse at Wadikabir - total

area 3500 sqm - covered ware-

house (500sqm), offi ce, ac-

commodation (1000sqm), open

area (2000sqm) please contact:

99273774 - 99202278

Four bedroom two fl oors luxurious

and spacious residential villa in

Al Hail North, near to the sea and

Oman oil. Each room has its own

bathroom. It has splits A/C’s and

shaded car park. OMR 750 month-

ly. Tel: 99333479 or 95215360 or

97509955

02 BHK residential fl at opposite

to Al Nahdha hospital.

Contact: 99342733 /99795241

2 bed rooms fl at with hall,

2 bathrooms in Darsait near

Muscat Municipality.

Contact: 92584715/ 24700120

Flats, shops and store for rent in

Ruwi, MBD & Mumtaz. Contact:

97293708 / 92433127

Flat for rent 2 BHK 2 split A/C, 2

toilets, Wadi Kabir near Kuwaiti

Masjid. Contact 97007934 /

92629232

Two modern fully furnished & equipped offi ces available for rent

at Jasmine Complex Al Khuwair:1) 152 M2 with recepti on, 1 GM Offi ce, 2 meeti ng rooms, 26 working stati ons,

pantry, network connecti on.2) 132 M2 with recepti on, 7 offi ces,

6 working stati ons, 1 conference room, network connecti on.

Contact - 99469698

FOR RENTCommercial Space

Commercial Space For Rent in Al Khuwair. Ideal for Coff ee Shop / Restaurant / Offi ce Space / Showroom

27sqm / 68sqm / 128sqm

Contact: 96775026

Available at a prime locati on on Azaiba Service Road

(Previously Occupied by A’Saff a Foods) near Al Turky and Mazda showroom.

Contact: 95215289, 99229263, 93221054

FURNISHED OFFICES FOR RENT

Contact: 95215289, 99229263, 93221054

COLD STORE ROOMS FOR RENT

Available at a prime locati on on azaiba service road

(previously occupied by A’Saff a Foods) near Al Turky and Mazda showroom

FLAT FOR RENTLocati on: Acacia - AL MOUJ.Area: 100 m2; Consisti ng of One Master BR, Study Room, Sitti ng ,

Balcony & Fully furnished Kitchen.Faciliti es: Swimming Pool &

Car Parking.Monthly Rent & Payment Method: Negoti able upon

viewing the property.

Call: 99 10 88 47 - 93 40 35 56

DAILY GUIDET U E S D AY, M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 6 D3

FOR SALE

FOR SALE

FOR RENT

ACC. AVAILABLE

1 Bed room, sharing K& T, R.O 100,

2 bedrooms , sharing K& T

R.O 200/- in AL Khuwair.

Contact 95154331

Flat in Al Khuwair opp grand mall

4 room 3 toilet + hall kitchen in 3

fl oor 400. Contact 99420346

Flat for rent in South AlGhubrah

3 rooms, hall and 3 toilets, kitchen

rent 450/-. Contact: 99335580

2BHK split A/C 200/- Monthly

& 1BHK spilt A/C 150/- monthly

new building good location Barka

Market. contact 99342661

2BHK Big Size Flat Behind Bank

Muscat, Wadi Kabir. Near ISWK.

97826454, 24815012.

For rent and investment Land

industrial shops in Rusayl.

Contact: 99323957 /

95490842

Two bedrooms fl at in Al Ghobrah

near Oman Oil of 18 November

Street. OMR 330 Monthly.

Contact 99333479 or 95215360 or

97509955.

BUYING

Bobcat available for rent.

Contact 97623299

Buying cars for cash.

Contact: 90202090

Sharing accommodation with

attached bathroom available for

family in villa in Mabela near

Nesto hypermarket split A/C

spacious rooms R.O 100/-.

Contact: 92689529

Well furnished sharing room for

Executive bachelor at Rex Road.

Contact: 92873832

Single room for bachelor at Ruwi

Opposite OC Center.

Contact: 99385287

1 BHK appartment for rent in

Al Khoud Shabiya near mazoon

mosque for rent (next to alkhoud

medical center and squ)

MOB: 93913224

Small old house for rent in

Ghobra. Contact: 97165972

Sharing ACC available for bach-

elor in Al Khuwair near the Muscat

Pharmacy rent R.O 100/- only.

Contact: 94297820

Room for rent near Hamriya

roundabout for bachelor only.

Contact: 97443614

Single room sharing B/K at

Mumtaz area. Contact: 95212017

Single room available near

Darsait Lulu. Contact: 92120626

Room with attached bathroom for

working ladies in a fl at in M.B.D.

Contact: 99764307

Furnish bedroom with attach

bathroom for executive bachelor.

Contact: 97704794

FOR HIRE

Crane trailer, hiab. Contact:

99354909

WANTED

IELTS Coaching (academic)

required nearby wadi Kabir area.

Please call on mobile or msg on

Whats up. Mobile no: 92927880/

99012165

MV SALE

LOST

Explorer 2010 with warranty,

registered 2011 Expatriate driven,

single owner no accidents excel-

lent condition, R.O 6800/-.

Contact: 92689529

Expats selling Toyota Corolla

Silver, 1.6 Automatic 2008 with

new tyres and manual window

excellent condition 2,09,000 km.

Contact: 99759162

Ford Focus, 2012 automatic expat

driven. Contact: +968 92187371

Honda Accord 2009 expat driven,

well maintained under Honda ser-

vice, good condition silver color,

new tyres. Contact: 93210061

Hyundai Elantra 1.8, 2001 fully

A/T 270000 km, 600/-.

Contact: 92531535

Mazda Cx 9, in immaculate condi-

tion, expatriate driven, single

owner, no accidents, serviced

regularly by Towel Auto, 2013

model, mileage 8500KM.Expected

price: RO 7000.000 (negotiable).

Contact Pradeep 94194071

Nissan Altima 2.5S purchased &

registered Oct 2012 Golden color

dealer maintained new tyres &

battery, excellent condition.

Contact: 97717152

Hyundai Accent 1.6, 2014 model,

good condition. Contact : 95212017

FOR LADIES

Off er!! Treading Gold Facial &

Pedicure just for 10 RO,

Al Doom Parlour Ruwi:

Contact 99619409 (watsup)

NRI

INDIAN RAILWAYS

Ticket Reservation

Hotel & Bus Tickets

Star Travel92820665 / 24711734

910 SQ FT, 1 B/R fully furnished fl at

at Quepem – Goa. Contact: 97094797

Lands sale in Trichur Kerala.

Contact 91637137 / 91 9746573948

NRI selling his properties in fol-

lowing places : -Bangalore (Sobha

Garnet, 4 bed room apartment),

Hosur (25 cents), Cochin (20

cents), Trivandrum (11 cents, op-

posite to KIMS Hospital), Shertala

(20 cents), Kanyakumari ( 175

cents along National Highway)

Nagercoil ( 3 plots of 11 cents, 100

cents and 20 cents). Please send e

mail to [email protected] or

call Pradeep 94194071

*Classifi ed Advertisement space booking with text,

should be done till 12.00 noon for next day’s publication.

* Subject to space availability

INVESTOR PARTNER REQUIRED

Please contact – 95213273Email:

muscatcoff [email protected]

For a successfully Catering Restaurant

Investor cum Partner is required.

Investor with fi xed returns also welcome.

10 Shops in ground fl oor of 8 fl oor

building in Bausher near Muscat

Private Hospital. Have income

of about 2,700 monthly. OMR

268 Thousand. Tel: 99333479 or

95215360 or 97509955

6 Villas of six bedrooms each un-

der construction in one compound

in Bausher near Muscat Private

hospital. Prices range from 165

thousand to 179 thousand for each

villa. Each villa has three fl oors

and 369 sq mtrs build up area.

Tel: 99333479 or 95215360 or

97509955

Working beauty parlour for sale

at Al Ghubra. Contact: 98178135

Shops for rent at Musanna.3

shutter (280sq mtrs) and one

shutter (40 sq mtrs) shops for

rent at prime location at Musanna,

main road side. Contact: +968

93797900, +968 96347070

Beach Flat in N. Cyprus, new,

furnished, ocean view, 1 Bdrm +

terrace http://abv-apt.weebly.com/

Contact 9208 9704

Laundry for sale Ruwi near Came-

lia. Contact: 92868123 / 92841089

Space for printing press available

at wadikabir with or without

machinery. Contact 99328430

Travel agency for sale or lease

very well established travel

agency at Rex Road is for sale or

lease with two staff and one clear-

ance. Contact 99704304

Coff ee shop for sale in Al Khuwair

33. Contact: 92994415

A well running pharmacy for sale

at prime location.

Contact 99627621, 93240949

20 x40 containers. Contact: 99354909

HD Scaff oldings, Shuttering

Jacks, Wooden Planks, Shuttering

wood assorted, Tower hoist (lift),

Concrete Mixer, Bending Machine,

Steel Fabrication Machinery

(Searing/Cutting, lathe & Welding)

including tools for immediate sale:

Contact 99273774/ 99202278

Shop for sale near Oman House,

Muttrah. Contact 99024362.

400 sq mtrs Commercial/Resi-

dential land in Mabela Phase 5

Block 2. OMR 165 Thousand.

Contact 99333479 or 95215360

or 97509955

Single colorful Bed and Sofa

for Sale at Al Khuwair.

Contact 92881849 /

What`s up No 97290565

Urgent sale of steel scrap only

serious buyers kindly contact

+968 96725423 for viewing the

items.

Shops for rent in Ibra Main road

opposite technical college. Contact:

+968 93894290 / 99419496

Villa in Bousher consists of 5

rooms, 1 hall & living room.

Contact: 91153933

Villa in Al Khoud consists of 6

bedrooms, 1 sitting & living room.

Contact: 91153933

Villa in Al Ghubra consists of

5 bedrooms, 1 hall and living room.

Contact: 91153933

Room with 9 bathrooms in Boush-

er for rent. Contact: 91153933

Apartment in Al Khoudh consists

of 2 room & hall.Contact: 91153933

2 Bedroom centrally air condi-

tioned fl at in CBD prime location.

Contact: 24714625 / 94460790

Flat for rent near Royal Hospital.

Contact: 99346793

01 Bedroom in Darsait, 1,2,3

Bedroom fl ats at Al Khuwair.

Contact: 24707340 / 95282986 /

99472457

Villa for rent in South Mabellah,

3 bedrooms, sitting room, family

Lounge, kitchen, three Toilets

Contact 92212212

between 10 AM to 5 PM.

Room with attached bathroom for

a family in Wadi Kabir.

Contact 97167857

Sharing Accommodation avail-

able for working ladies opposite

Al Nadhah Hospital. Preferably

Indians. Room with seperate toilet

and sharing kitchen.RO.90.

Contact 96524717

Room available in Mumtaz area

1 room, 1 Bathroom, Kitchen & 1

room, common bathroom. Inter-

ested pleasecontact 92680041

Mr. Altaf

Room for rent with furniture.

Al Bustan village.

Contact 93687466

Furnished room attached bath

for Indian bachelor, Al-Falaj

Ruwi & lady Wadi Kabir near

Mars hypermarket. CONTACT

96202458/96761960

Furnished apartment for rent, two

rooms, majlis, hall, kitchen. Near

Carrefour al-mawalah.

Contact 99336776

Sharing accommodation

near ISD. Contact: 99657340

Room available for Executive

bachelor at Al Hail.

Contact 96234708

Room with attached bathroom

and sharing kitchen available

for Executive bachelor or small

family at wadikabir

Contact 93049849

ACC. AVAILABLE

MATRIMONIAL

Invite alliance for Sunni Muslim

Urdu girl B.E, M.B.A 25 years 5.1”

fair, Tamil Nadu India.

Contact: 99502581

Parent of Thrissur based Hindu

Ezhava girl aged 20, Slim,Atham

star, Studying for B. Pharm seek-

ing alliance from well employed

Graduates, preferably in Engineer-

ing Contact :96425102

Keralite RC boy 35 /

184 working as 3D Animator and

Graphics designer in Salalah.

Contact: 92936076 /

95605527

Indian male Roman Catholic 40yrs divorcee working in Muscat.

Seeks suitable alliance from

widow/ divorcee/ single.

Contact 96059801.

Malankara Catholic Male Nurse (28) from Thiruvalla working in

Nizwa Private Co. Alliance invites

parents/nurses working in Oman.

Contact 968 98267338,

0091 9287215726

GOOD NEWS

Ayurvedic treatment for joint

pain, backache, paralysis, mas-

sage, steambath, obesity, Spondy-

litis, Ideal Care Ayurvedic Clinic,

18 November Street, Azaiba.

Contact: 99639695 / 97397320

Ayurvedic treatment for

backache, paralysis, arthritis etc &

massage, All Season

(Vaidyaratnam). Contact:

24475280 / 95371664 /

92504980 www.siddhayur.com

FREE INFORMATION ABOUT ISLAM. If you would like to know

more about Islam,

please call: 99425598, 99250777,

99353988, 99253818, 99341395,

and 99379133. For ladies:

99415818, 99321360, 99730723

Orvisit:www.islamfact.com

Korshed Alam has lost Bangla-

deshi Passport No. BB 0724212.

Finder please handover to ROP.

Mohammed Ibrahim Mohammed Sharif has lost Pakistani Passport

No. BD 1027711. Finder please

handover to ROP.

Mohammad Mominul has lost

Bangladesh passport No AD

2473971. Finder please handover

to ROP.

Empty shop for sale in Ruwi near

Camelia. Contact: 92841089

Car accessories, upholstery, oil &

battery shop for sale in Seeb.

Contact: 92262284/96733523

Luxury Apartments in Boucher

(35). Contact 95056808 /

97201688

Steel Scrap materials for immediate sale.

Contact 99273774/ 99202278

Almost new beach/ garden

lounge chairs /bar stools/ counter.

Photos can be sent 95865457

DAILY GUIDED4 T U E S D AY, M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 6

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION VACANT

SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION WANTED

Email: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624

DRIVER

DRAFTSMAN

MISCELLANEOUS

MISCELLANEOUS

Urgently required for a reputed Ready-mix Company, ‘Heavy Duty Drivers’ having valid Omani

Licence, with local release. GCC

licence holders also can apply,

subject to local rules. Labour

clearances are ready for immedi-

ate employment. Contact with

passport details, copies of licence

etc in person to

Mr. Mohd Aqueel – 99338619,

Mr Shamsuddin – 99274321

Wanted Light duty Driver cum house boy for an Indian family in

Oman. Kindly contact 99425610 /

99211030

Wanted driver. Contact: 97165972

Urgently required Lab Tech, prefer-

ably Prometric cleared or with MOH

license for a Medical Center in Ruwi.

Contact 9522 0350

Urgent required Pharmacist with

MOH LIC to work in a Pharmacy.

Salary negotiable, good package.

Contact: 94870029

immediate appointment.

Dot Muscat Company LLC is look-ing for Optometrist. Contact us on:

[email protected]

Required Lab Technician, X- Ray Technician, Staff Nurses & Doctors. Contact: 99681325 Email:

[email protected]

Urgent hiring Optometrist (prefer-

ably with MOH License or new can-

didate with Diploma in Optometry

with 3 years experience for full time

for a reputed Optical shop in Oman.

Contact 93033252

Email: [email protected]

Require a qualifi ed Nurse to take

care of an elderly female.

Contact: 99425200

Urgently required General Practi-tioner (Indian/ Bangladeshi), Omani

Receptionist (female) for a reputed

Medical Centre, Salalah.

Email : [email protected]

Required GP doctor for running

clinic in Salalah. Contact 92732491 /

93129219, email :

[email protected]

Care Medical Centre Al Seeb requires

Gynecologist and General Practition-er. Mail CV to:[email protected]

Wanted G.P doctor & Nurse in Mus-

cat. Contact: 95631779 / 99722457

Urgently required Staff Nurse with

MOH license for a private clinic in

Sohar (leave vacancy for 3 months).

Contact: 99797459

GP doctor needed for reputed clin-

ic. Preferably with MOH license or

with Datafl ow & Paramatics pass

Contact: 95388934

Wanted Staff Nurse for

a dermatology clinic in Muscat .

Must have MOH license and NOC.

Attractive salary off ered. Email:

[email protected]

ENGINEER/MECHANIC.

ARCHITECT

CATERING

A well established Ready-mix Concrete Company needs an experienced ‘Maintenance Engineer’ to look after its multi-

facility workshop and supervise /

co-ordinate site wise operations.

Candidate must be a qualifi ed

Mechanical Engineer with relevant

experience of handling a fl eet

of various brands and Concrete

batching plants and Pumps. For-

ward your CV with relevant data to

[email protected] /

Contacts: 99256757

Required Indian Engineer road

Construction 5/10 years experi-

ence Eligibility BE or Diploma Civil

AutoCAD Estimation with Oman

(D/L) & Indian Heavy Duty drivers.

Contact: 99882127


SECRETARIAL & OFFICE

SALES / MARKETING

SKILLED / UNSKILLED ACCOUNT. & FINANCE

ACCOUNT. & FINANCE

Juice cum ice-cream maker. Contact: 92841089

DOMESTIC HELPER

MEDICAL

MEDICAL

IT

Wanted loading & unloading people. Visa ready apply Indians

only. Contact:95451713

Urgently required 1 No. ITI Electrician, minimum 2 years of

experience & should be able to

read electrical drawings.

Send CV to Fax: 24591610 or

email: [email protected]

Required Indian Mason – 5 nos., eligibility (minimum 5 yrs experi-

ence in road construction fi eld).

Contact: 99882127


Indian male good experience in Ac-

counts, Admin and ERP Tally 9 look-

ing for a suitable job. NOC available.

Contact: 94834687

Accountant / Marketing, BBA, Tally,

Dip in logistics, can work on my cur-

rent visa. Contact 98269281

Financial Controller 23 years Oman

experience in fi nancial management

MOUs feasibility studies available.

Contact: 91302906

Accounts part time services,

available to handle all accounts up

to fi nalization on monthly basis.

Finalization and audit works.

Contact: 96247295

Indian female B.Com 4 years

experience in accounting experi-

ence in wings & knowledge of tally.

1 year experience in Oman seeking

suitable placement for accountant,

presently on family visa.

Contact: 92054531 / 93491124

Indian male MBA (F) with 6 years

of experience as an Accountant

profi ciency in various A/C software

& SAPFI seeking for suitable place-

ment. Contact: 95920740 Email:

[email protected]

Accountant Indian male with 7

years experience up to fi nalization

in tally & accounts receivable SAP

R/3, good knowledge of payroll

having Oman D/L, NOC.

Contact: 93733996

Email Id: [email protected]

Indian female M.Com with Oman

driving license having 10+ years

experience in Accounts & Admin-

istration in Oman seeking suitable

job, NOC available.

Contact: 91609799

Indian, Kerala Male B.COM & B.PE,

Currently on Visit Visa. Looking for a

suitable job in Accounts, Store Keep-

er, Sales etc. Ready to join as early as

possible. Contact :- 96988923

email:- [email protected]

Senior Accountant Indian male 10

years experience (8 yrs in Oman)

with D/L & NOC, Accounts upto

fi nalization. Contact: 99582979 /

97373853

Accountant 8Years Experience

with D/L and NOC.

Contact 97712084

Required Shop Sales man + Hard-ware Technician for IT Company

with minimum 2 years experience.

Contact: 98825806 / 98825806,


Wanted Dentist with MOH license

for a clinic in Sur. Contact 95653810

Required gynecologist GEN: practitioner lady lab Technician and pharmacologist immediately

for a clinic in Suwaiq.

Contact: 95081010


Urgently required Housemaid for

small Indian family in Al Khoud.

Attractive Salary, Acc & Visa Pro-

vided. Cont No.9522 0350

Required Gardener for part time job at Al Rabiat Qurum.

Contact 95890531

Urgently required an experienced Waiter for a food restaurant. Visa

available. Contact: 96026615 /

99816262

Indian male age 26, Accountant one

year experience in accounts

looking for suitable job. Contact -


Mobile: +968 9565 9415

Qualifi ed and experienced MBA

post graduate with proven work

exposure in Middle East & India,

having more than 5.5 years of rich

experience in accounts , project

coordination and administration

in (3.5 years UAE experience) oil

and gas projects is currently

looking for suitable job.

Contact 93953613, Email

[email protected]

Male Accountant M.Com (Accounts & fi nance) having

3 years experience in accounts

looking for suitable job on visit

visa. ontac: 94648575

IND female 12 years exp in

Banking, Insurance customer

service Secretarial skills analysis

communication, client handling,

coordination, Team handling,

qualifi cation, M.COM looking for

suitable position currently on visit

visa. Contact: 95166496

Indian male 25 yrs, Graduate in

commerce, overall 5 yrs exp in ac-

counts/ fi nance fi eld. On visit visa.

Immediately available.

Contact 92836216 /

[email protected]

LOOKING FOR

ELECTRICIANRequired urgently

experienced Electricians with ITI Certifi cate.

Contact 99878180, [email protected]

SIT.WANTED

Contact email- [email protected] &

[email protected]

REQUIRED Marketing manager/

Sales ExecutivesExperience in

Sales/Marketing of Building Materials(Sanitary wares &

Kitchens). Not less than 5 yrs expSound customer Base

Urgently required: Civil Drafts-man- with experience 5 years

experience in building and with

NOC for immediately join.

Interested candidates may call us

to our offi ce telephone:

00968-24696584/24696585 or

fax: 00968-24605955 or email us

to [email protected],

[email protected]

Urgently required a ‘Purchase Manager’ to handle all the pro-

curements for a reputed Ready-

mix concrete Company, having

its branches all over Oman. The

candidate should possess required

experience, product knowledge

and excellent communication

skills. Interested candidates may

send their CV to sndakshin@gmail.

com /Contact: 99256757

Dot Muscat Company LLC is look-

ing for Sales/Marketing associate. Contact : [email protected]

Urgent hiring Sales Girl (Omani)

full time for a reputed Optical shop

in Oman.. Contact 93033252


Wanted Staff with 3 years experi-

ence in Oman in real estate fi eld.

Contact: +968 95910186


Urgently required Marketing Executive for a reputed Company

in Oman with valid Oman D/L.

Contact 94293209,

[email protected]

Require Marketing Manager, experience 5 years plus,

Omani driving license.

Tel: 24548382

Email id - [email protected]

Required marketing / PR manager

for a modern restaurant group in

Oman , profi cient in illustrator &

Photoshop charismatic , proac-

tive , creative & fl exible excellent

writing / Editing skills degree in

relevant area fl uent in English.

Send CV to

[email protected]

Looking for Salesman with experi-

ence in vegetable and fruits sales,

good conduct, fl uent in English.

Should have driving license. Email

CV on: [email protected]

Contact - 96339339

Salesman required for electrical

equipments with driving license &

5/7 years working experience.

Fax your C.V 24833043

(Jinan Enterprises)

2 years Diploma Health and

Safety IOSH managing safely

OHS academy 48 hours Manager

level HABC fi re safety, bachelors

in Commerce and Post Graduate

Finance 3 years experience in

Construction & General Industry.

Contact 93107730

Indian male 25 years ACCA fi nal-

ist with B.SC (Hons.) in account-

ing with experience in Tally with

Omani driving license looking for

suitable placement, release avail-

able. Contact : 92851056

Accountant Indian male B.Com

with 8 years experience in Oman

knowledge in tally ERP, SAP AX,

MIS up to fi nalization NOC avail-

able. Contact: 96989872 Email:

radhakrishnank2007@rediff mail.

com

Chief / Senior Accountant having

12 years of Oman experience seeks

suitable position.

Contact: 97385562

A Graduate of Alexandria

Mechanical Power Engineering

and certifi ed International Pro-

curement Manager CIPM basics of

supply chain management BSCM

- APICS seeking suitable job for his

Qualifi cations. Contact:

20 01222399139 Oman 99602608

C/O Osman Email:

[email protected]

Indian male 7 years experience

as Accountant in Oman having

Oman driving license looking for

job, currently in Oman. NOC avail-

able. Contact: 92859733 Email:

[email protected]

36 years, male with M.Com

Finance having 15 yrs of insur-

ance & banking experience in In-

dia, on visit visa for 15 Days seeks

suitable jobs. Contact 91159284 /

99429589

Indian male 34 Yrs, Dual MBA

Finance and marketing with IT

skills, 7+ yrs of experience,

Looking for suitable placement.

contact 94879615,Email-

[email protected]

Accountant, Indian female, B.Com

Graduate 1 & half year experience

up to fi nalization in tally with

reporting knowledge, pursuing

ACCA, having valid GCC D/L.

Contact: 95373751

Sudanese Accountant, Alexandria

University Graduate bachelor of

commerce Diploma of Marketing

professional photographer worked

in PR and social media for 2 years

looking for a job in public relations

media, social media or marketing.

Contact: 96976240

Architect female 5 years experi-

ence seeking job.

Contact: [email protected]

A REPUTED SUPER MARKET IN AL-KHODH REQUIRES

SHOP ASSISTANTSTh e above position must have good experience in SUPER MARKET with Computer Knowledge Attractive Salary & benefi ts will be off ered for the right candidate.

Th ose interested may forward their CV’s to Email: [email protected] or Fax: 24413025

Urgently required Recepti onist (Omani Nati onal): Having Secondary Certi fi cate with Minimum 2 years experience good command over English & Arabic. Should be capable of handling all type of correspondence & routi ne offi ce works independently, and good skill in MS-Offi ce is must.

Urgently required Light Duty Driver (Omani Nati onal): Age should be 30 to 40 years ,should be capable of driving Pickup and 3 ton vehicle and having good knowledge of all area locati ons.

Interested candidates may send in their CVs to Fax # 24600217 or email on: [email protected]

VACANCIES

Required male or female offi ce assistance for a spare parts com-

pany, any national, experienced

not a must . Good salary packages

will off ered for suitable candidates

. Tel no +96824593148 , Email ID

:[email protected]

Required candidates for following

posts: Accountant, Storekeeper, Foreman Building Maintenance, Van-salesman (water), Helpers. Candidates with Omani driving

license preferred.

Contact 99273774/99202278

Accountant, Indian male, with 6

years experience up to fi nalization

in tally with reporting knowledge

and good knowledge of payroll,

having valid driver’s license,

with NOC. Contact: 94035577


Indian male M.Com, PGDCA, 10

years of experience in Oman as

Senior Finance Executive good ex-

perience in fi nance and accounts

looking for suitable placement

with reputed organizations.

Contact: 95392251

BBA fi nance 2 years experience as

Accountant 6 months experience

Assistant Marketing off er looking

for jobs in accounts and marketing.

Contact: 90291297

BBA fi nance fresh Graduate

knowledge of accounting balance

sheet income statement, tally,

advance, excel looking for jobs

accountant. Contact: 93150918

28/male/MBA - fi nance/B.Com -

Accountant with 4 years of Dubai/

India experience looking for a

suitable placement.

Contact 90187483

[email protected]

Part time Sr. Accountant with

19 yrs experience in Accounts,

fi nance, Audit Tax Management.

Contact: 95857199

Indian male , 29 B.com ICWA

(pursuing) 7 years experience

in accountant / audit with valid

Omani D/L seeking for suitable

placement, NOC available.

Contact: 94706954


Male B.Com Graduate Assist. Accountant with 2 years experi-

ence in Accounting administration.

Contact: 94736742

Accountant available with NOC,

7 years experience in Oman.

Ready to join immediately.

Contact 98263394

ACCA member with 6 yrs of

experience in Oman looking for a

suitable job in fi nance.

Contact: 99284193

Indian Accountant M.Com, 3 years

experience in Oman, with valid NOC

& driving license looking for a suit-

able position in accounts & sales.

Contact: 94744575

Indian male qualifi cation MBA Fi-

nance Marketing experience 2 years

express visa seeking for placement,

presently on express visa.

Contact: 93991882



ENGG. / TECH./MECH.SECRETARIAL & OFFICE

EDUCATION/TRAINING

Female B. Ed English teacher, 7 yrs exp seeking suitable

placement. Contact : 99739415 /

92091528

Indian female, MSc Physics, B.Ed,

5+ years experience in Oman seeks

suitable placement.

Contact: 93992958 / 96203570

Teacher Female , Phd in Chemis-

try having 3.5 yrs of Experience in

India. Staying here on Family Visa

& seeking for a suitable placement.

Contact – 99675828, Email -

[email protected]

Indian male, 25 yrs,

Accountant, 2.5 yrs in

Finance & Accounts, MBA

Finance & HR, exposure in

SAP, Tally, ERP 9 on visit visa.

Contact 96715420 / 91265020, Email : [email protected], [email protected]

DRIVER

DESIGNER/DRAUGHTSMAN

DESIGNER/DRAUGHTSMAN

ENGG. / TECH./MECH.

Autocad works, free lancer / part

time, experienced, arch, MEP, struc-

tural. Contact : 97103168

Revit, Autocad D/man, expected

salary 200 OMR PH :92279784

Mechanical Engineer (Indian

male, 24 years) with three years

experience looking for suitable job.

Currently on visit visa, ready to join

immediately. Contact: 92175441


B.E Mechanical Engineer, age 24

with almost 1 year experience as

Production Shift Engineer, has

achieved training on HVAC En-

gineering design and has good

hands on software like AutoCAD

and HAP.Currently in Oman on a

visit visa, looking for a suitable

placement.Contact: 95065955


Mechanical Engineer 2 years

experience as HVAC design and

drafting MEP Engg.

Contact: 90150913

18 years experienced Indian

Civil Engineer (buildings) with

NOC looking for suitable positions.

Contact: 92855910


AutoCAD Draughtsman Indian

12 years experience Civil Infra-

structure, 9 years Gulf experience.

Contact: 93528255 Email:

[email protected]

Civil land surveyor with 6

years experience in construction

industry (4 years in Oman) basic

education BA + Civil Surveyor

Diploma looking for suitable posi-

tion. Contact: 96767070 Email:

[email protected]

Young Indian, Engineering in

Bio-technology, Bio-chemical and

Chemical, looking for a challenging

placement in Oman.

Contact 97607000. Email:

[email protected]

Indian female, BE Electrical, 2 yrs

experienced. Contact 92051754,

[email protected]

Electrical Engineer having 8

years experience with valid driv-

ing license. Contact 91293519,


B.Sc Civil Engineer, MBA experi-

ence 5 years (15 months in Oman)

English & Arabic, driving license

looking for a suitable job.

Contact: 94162443

Mechanical Engineer (UK), having

4 yrs exp in the fi eld of technical,

sales & maintenance Engineer

seeking suitable placement having

valid Oman D/L& NOC is also avail-

able. Contact: +968 97612297


Indian male BE Mechanical Engi-

neering having 1 year experience

seeks suitable position available in

Oman on visit visa.

Contact: 96630091


Female MCA qualifi ed Software

manual testing Engineer with

5 years experience looking for

suitable position in Muscat on

family joining visa. Contact: 0091

9884095301 / 00968 94231305,


Indian male Mechanical Engineer

with 2 yrs of experience on visit

visa, looking for a suitable job.

Contact: 90551526


Electrical Engineer experience 9

years in Oman. Contact: 98148034

MEDICAL

Indian female Dentist specialized

Endodontist looking for suitable

placement, prometric completed.

Contact: 96410448

Lady General Dentist available for

leave vacancy. Contact 92732491 /

93129219, email :

[email protected]

Female Nurse passed Oman

prometric and viva completed

datafl ow searching for vacancies

preferably from Salalah region.

NOC available. Contact: 91737898

Female Indian MOH licensed den-

tist looking out for job opportuni-

ties in Nizwa. Has 14 yrs experi-

ence as dentist after graduation.

Can be contacted on 93329964

Sudanese female Medical Labora-

tory specialist with M.S.C in hema-

tology, 3 years experience seeking

for suitable job. Contact: 97996545

Qualified Certified Management Accountant (CMA-USA) and cost and

management accountant (ACMA-

India) with over 25 years experience in

Sultanate of Oman in finance, banking

and administration is seeking a suitable

placement. NOC available.

Contact -95986767

MANAGER

IT

IT

MISCELLANEOUS

Construction Machinery repairs

Engineer, 5 years, driving license,

94001961

Indian male civil Engineering

Diploma holder, 31 years, 4 years

experience in Oman, 2 years in road

division looking for placement.

N.O.C available. Contact: 93298395

Architect Engineer bachelor

Sudanese 7 years experience in

building and construction and

design (AutoCAD – Archicad)

Contact: 95140464

Pakistani male 48 yrs Diploma

electrical technician with 21 yrs

exp . Contact : 98262600, Email:

[email protected]

Diploma in Civil Engineer with

5 yrs experience in Oman seeking

a suitable job N.O.C available.

Contact: 93630296 / 93264828

Indian 14 yrs exp SR MEP – Elect

Engg with NOC, searching suitable

job, in fi eld PMC, Fire consultants

, Testing & com, project supervi-

sion. Contact: 92437865


Indian 24 yrs exp SR civil Engg

with NOC, searching suitable job,

in any project Supervision.

Contact: 96602718

[email protected]

Indian female diploma

Architecture having 5 years exp in

Engineering consultancy in Oman

seeking suitable placement.

Contact: 96683293

Indian male, Structural Engineer

looking for job in structural design

fi eld. Having 6 years of experience

in design fi eld. Residing in Muscat.

Contact: 91176187

[email protected]

Telecommunication Engineer Sudanese male having 3 years for

experience in Telecom RF3 optical

fi ber seeks for job. Contact: 91403123


Telecom Engineer Sudanese

male having 4 years experience in

telecom RF 3 optical fi ber looking

for job. Contact: 95614243


AutoCAD Draughtsman Indian

male 8 years exp Civil, Interior,

precasting, GCC driving license.

Contact: 95685028


Telecommunication Engineer 35 years experience with Omantel

company, Hindi , English & Arabic.

Contact: 91204243 / 94372096 /

99751612

Sudanese Mechanical Engineer +13 years experience in heavy

equipments maintenance experi-

ence in Oil fi eld. Contact 96583270

Indian male (Kerala) 24 yrs, B.E

Civil Engineer, residing in Oman

on visit visa looking for suitable

placement. Contact: 92724814 /

99473131

Site Supervisor, Diploma in

Civil Engg (cert attested) knows

autocad revit, salary exp: 250

Ph : 92279784

INDIAN MALE, MARKETING & HR SPECIALIST,

25 yrs, Master degree with 2 yrs of experience both HR & Marketi ng,

now on visiti ng visa. Contact 96972939 / 96096723

Email : [email protected], [email protected]

Indian Female, 24 Years - MSc

Biotechnology. Worked in Inter-

national Crops Research Institute

For The Semi Arid Tropics for pro-

ject work as trainee. Looking for

suitable job. Mobile: 92619048,


Procurement Coordinator Indian

male 30 yrs B.Com (computers)

4 years experience in Saudi Arabia

in Construction Company, looking

for any suitable position on visit

visa till 15 May 16.

Contact: 0968-98590811 Email:

[email protected]

Indian female Mech. Engineer

with 1 & half years experience

looking for suitable placement.

Interested in Sales & Marketing

also. Contact: 94743992


Indian female B.Tech (Civil)


Contact: 93480346


Civil Engineer diploma, 4 yrsexp

seeks suitable position ina reputed

company. NOC available.

Contact 96789711

Civil Engineer 8 years experience

Structural buildings marine.

Available NOC release.

Contact: 92451323.


Indian male Electrical Engineer, having 6 years gulf experience

in designing, assembling, com-

missioning execution etc having

valid GCC license too looking for a

suitable. Contact: 00968-98052942


HSE Engineer (B.E Mech+Diploma

Safety+NEBOSH+OSHA) over

10yrs. Exp, (Visa Release Letter

(NOC) available), seeking suit-

able placement, Mob:97061817,

Email:[email protected]

Civil Engineer (B.Tech), Indian

male 24 years with 1+years Indian

experience,(Certifi ed in Staad

Pro/ Quantity Survey/ Auto Cad).

Looking for a Suitable position.

Available In Sultanate of Oman

(Muscat) on Visit Visa.

Contact 92835952. E-mail:

[email protected]

Mechanical Engineer & Project Manager Sudanese 29 yrs, more than 3 yrs experience in Mining Company,

Profession:Producti on & manufacturing, safety, fi re fi ghti ng designing,

Engineering Management, sales – Muscat, Oman. Contact 968 93642704,


B.E Mechanical Engineer, In-

dian male 34 years, having 10+

years experience in MEP build-

ing construction fi eld (HVAC,

Firefi ghting and Plumbing)

with Omani D/L. NOC available.

96978380;[email protected]

Indian male 26 B.Tech Civil Engi-

neer 3 year’s 8 months Experience

at building construction. In Oman

2 year’s experience N.O.C available

seeking suitable placement

Contact : 97396269


An Iraqi civil with more than

30 years experience in (Iraq and

G.C.C) looking for a job, (N.O.C)



Indian male, Mechanical

Engineer having 1year experi-

ence, on visit visa looking for

suitable job. Contact:97416564,


Civil Engineer 8 years experience

in Oman as a project engineer for

governmental & private projects.

Contact – 90164912

An experienced Chartered Accountant

With over 25 years in varied industries, presently working with

a reputed group in Muscat, looking out for a suitable change.

Contact - 96491030

A/C Tech with Electrician and

plumber looking for maintenance

job, have D/L. Contact: 95308363

Quantity Survey works part time /

freelance (civil).Contact: 95719108

Civil Engineer diploma 3 years

5 years experience in supply

chain (warehouse logistics) pro-

curement. Contact: 90644186

Quantity Surveyor (Civil) 11 years

with Omani driving license, local re-

lease available. Contact: 95719108

Electrical B.Sc Engineer Pakistani

male 24 years looking for a job.

Contact: 94049812 / 92958112

Electrical & Electronics Engr,

knows autocad & revit.

PH: 93837973

Electrical Engineer having 16

years experience in switchgear

/ transformer / over head lines &

trading for sales / procurement &

project execution with valid Omani

D/L. Contact: +968 95994727


Sr. Electrical Engineer with17+ yrs

of exceptional exp in spear head-

ing strategic planning and project

management initiatives & execut-

ing various high rise residential

& commercial building as well as

roads and highway project with

profi ciency in installation, seeking

a challenging position in a dynamic

organization. Contact 96570891

Civil Engineer experience March

2013 to July 2015.

Contact: 91034688

Electrical Engineer Indian male

30 years, having 5 years of experi-

ence in industrial automation

& utility maintenance in Indian

(MRF Tyres) holding valid Oman

D/L. Contact: 92789995 Email:

[email protected]

Mechanical Engineer (B.Tech)

Indian male with 1 year experience

looking for job, qualifi cation in

Qa-Qc, HVAC & piping engineering.

Contact 90510800, Email :

[email protected]

Indian male B-tech 8 years expe-

rience as senior electrical project

engineer / QC engineer on visit

visa seeks suitable placement.

Contact 94094543


Sudanese Civil Structure Engi-neer 3 years looking for job in rep-

utable company AutoCAD, Etabs,

Staad Pro Omani driving license


ADMIN

With 15 years of Gulf experience

in HR / Admin / logistics looking

for suitable position. Fluent in

Arabic / English with D/L.

Contact: 95824598

Indian female Graduate over 6

years of experience in Admin,

Sales, operation support looking for

suitable job. Contact: 94231020

Indian male post Graduate with

MBA health care management

London 3 years administration

experience seeking job.

Contact: 98232007, Email:

[email protected]

Indian female with nearly 10

years of Oman experience in

Administration and HR, seeking

suitable placement. NOC available.

Contact: 99242841

25 Male BBA, 5 years experience

Administration offi cer, accounts,

purchaser, NOC. Contact 91329571

Indian male, 20 years experience

in Oman as personal assistant /

offi ce manager / executive sec-

retary / administrator / business

development assistant looking for

a change. holding Omani driving

license. local release available.

Contact 99168054

Lady Expat looking for full time

job with visa. Interested fi elds are

Admin, teaching, HR, back offi ce.

Contact: 91739424


Filipino HRD especialist / mate-

rial controller supervisor with 18

yrs experience looking for suit-

able job in Oman. Contact: (+968)

98037142 / (+968) 92659817

Young Omani male have experi-

ence 12 years as P.R.O, CLERK

Helper Supervisor Admin Supervi-

sor, H.R Manager have diploma in

H.S.E, IT and P.D.O license, looking

for H.R position or P.R.O

part time or full time.

Contact: 95933288

Indian male Post Graduate in HR

19 years (8 Years in Oman) well

experienced in HR / Admin in Oil &

Gas, Construction fi elds with Oman

D/L seeks suitable position. Release

/ NOC available. Contact 92854993.

MANAGER, CIPD HR With 13 years experience in GCC and Oman. Competent in Sales, Marketi ng, Business operati on

and administrati on. Interested employer please call

97728418

Sr. Sales & Marketing SpecialistIndian male, Diploma Engineer with BBA & 16 yrs experience in Oman, worked with MNC in retail (Telecom/ Lubricant sales) and with construction industry handling various products & subcontract projects. Holding valid Oman D/L, NOC available.

Contact 96960991, Email : [email protected]

B.E (CSE) Graduate Indian male 25

years with 3 years experience in IT

fi eld, seeking suitable placement

currently on visit visa.

Contact: 91228492


7+ years experience Multimedia

& Software Developer currently

working in Microsoft seeking suit-

able job. Contact: 968 93936878

Indian male, B.SC Comp Science,

CCNA, MCP, 8 yrs of exp in System

and Network Support on visit visa

seeking suitable positions.

Contact: 91751472

IT PM available 10+ years experi-

ence six sigma black belt certifi ed

diverse background U.S Citizen.

Contact: + 968 94699818

Sudanese IT Developer with 2 years experience.

Contact: 94360181

Indian female M.Sc Computer

Science seeking suitable placement

in Muscat area. Contact: 98660672

IT Support Engineer, Exp 3 years

in Oman 2 years in India.

Contact: 94672759

IT support MCSA Network

Virtualization 1 year exp.

Contact: 98207829

Driver light vehicle from

Bangladeshi 5 years experience

in Oman 24 years Omani driving

license looking for job.

Contact: 98591812

Heavy duty driver, 4 yrs Oman

exp seeks placement.

Contact: 93916645

GCC driver 10 yrs exp.

Contact: 93722881

Looking for light driving job 4 yrs

exp. in Muscat speaking Hindi,

Arabic & English.

Contact: 92965920

Driver with light duty license, 10

yrs experience. Contact: 92742722

Looking for a job as light driver,

4 years experience in Oman.

Contact: 97311715

Family driver. Contact: 97196448

Bangladeshi 5 year experience in

Muscat, Oman all location, 3 years

experience U.S.A Dubai, can speak

Arabic, English & Hindi.

Contact: 99327665

Temporary light Driver. Contact:

94022005

Looking for driving job experience

4 years. Contact: 95776320

Experience driver looking for job.

Contact: 95113612

Light vehicle driver 6 years

in Oman. Contact: 94260369 /

94035746

Looking for Offi ce driving job

in Muscat, have been driving in

Muscat for 7 years & known all the

fl uent speaking in Arabic, English

com join work immediately.

Contact: 99640986


Bangladeshi male light vehicle

driver 15 yrs Kuwait exp & 3 yrs

Oman exp looking for job.

Contact: 98440049

Indian light driver having 2 years

experience in Oman know lan-

guage English, Hindi, Arabic need

job. Contact: 97366822

Male 3 years have experience in

driving. Contact: 96457875

Light driver looking for job exp

2 years in Oman.

Contact: 91929556

Looking for driving job or trans-

portation job, have Nissan Sunny

2012 model. Contact: 97224035

Light duty driver Pakistani seeks

placement. Contact: 97762974

Indian light driver looking for job.

Contact: 99089441

Looking for light driving job 2 yrs

exp. Contact: 91625977

Procurement / Commercial (Im-

port & Export) activities, Experi-

enced 17 yrs as Deputy Manager

in SAP & MS-Offi ce, Male Indian,

seeks suitable placement on visit.

Contact: 94629788

Indian Female, MBA-HR having

8+ experience in Administration/

HR, Customer Support, Offi ce

Coordinator with good Computer

skill, Now on Visit Visa,looking for

suitable position.

Contact: 90196235

Indian looking for customer ser-vice, purchase front offi ce Admin

5 years experience in UAE.

Contact: 91744032

A Young dynamic post Graduate with 10 years experience of Offi ce

Administration cum transport in

charge in Oman to manage large

fl eet of PDO / Non PDO vehicles

in addition having experience of

managing the labor camp and staff

with their mess valid Omani D/L.

Contact: +968 - 92700274


Filipino Male, 28 years Old. Look-

ing for job, Have experience in Rent

a Car/ Cargo & Logistics / Real

Estate/ Customer Care Executive /

Sale Executive & Marketing/ Shop

In- Charge with driving license, w/

good computer and communication

skill. GSM: 97761075

Male having visa, 3 years in

Oman with valid D/L seeks suita-

ble placement. Contact: 95453393

BS in Electrical Engineering, Experience: 5 years(Power Plants).

Contact: 92475206 Email:

[email protected]

Indian male, 28, post graduate, 6+

yrs exp in Oman in sales (back offi ce)

& credit control with valid Oman D/L

looking for suitable placements.

NOC available. Contact: 92066 523

Structure Draughtsman for road &

bridges with 10 years experience

looking for suitable job in Oman.

Contact: 95914879 / 91023774


Architectural Draftsmen diploma

in construction technology with 6

years experience in drafting and

detailing as per British standard

in Oman with valid Omani license

looking for suitable opportunity

Noc available. Call 94375897.

Filipino Senior Revit/AutoCAD

Draftsman with 20 years profes-

sional experience is looking for suit-

able job in Oman. Please Contact:

96489798, (+974) 66653780.

Pakistani male Diploma Civil

Engineer 4yrs exp in Oman bull-

ing & mega projects, valid license

Oman.Contact:98921022

5 years of experience in the post

of Networking Engineer holding

(CCNA – MCITP) Very good in Ara-

bic & English valid driving license.

Contact: 99813988

B.Tech (IT) experience in Net-

working server & desktop man-

agement in corporate environment


Contact: 92954613

Lady Secretary / Sales Co-co-

ordinator 12 years experience in

Oman in reputed companies,

seek immediate Employment.

Call: 95244761

DAILY GUIDED6 T U E S D AY, M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 6

Email: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624


SCM / LOGISTICS/ PROCURE-

MENT - 25 Yrs exp - Indian Male

- Oil & Gas, Manufacturing Sector

- Having valid Oman D/L & NOC

available. Seeks Challenging sen-

ior position. GSM-94236414,

Email ID - [email protected]

Planning Engineer, BE Mech

Engg. Indian Female having total

11 yrs exp in oil & gas projects (8+

yrs in Gulf) with valid Oman D/L,

Seeks a Suitable job.

Contact: 92456003

Fresh B.Com Graduate in visit

visa looking for a job. Contact:

93518923 / 99075027.


Indian male, 40 Years, B. Com,

having 10 years experience in

Oman, Tally & ERP- looking for

suitable placement ( NOC and

Oman driving license available.

Contact +91 89 43 109897

Rajeev. [email protected]

Part- Time Accountant, well expe-

rienced senior accountant ,capable

of doing all type of accounting

works up to fi nalization, Budget-

ing, Bank fi nancing requirements,

taxation work etc available.

Contact : 98803439

Indian/male (25)/ MBA/2 years

experience in channel sales and

distribution management. on visit

visa, available for immediate join-

ing. Contact: 96914068,


Light Duty Driver, Fluent in

English, Arabic. Well knowledge of

Oman Areas looking for suitable

placement. Contact 97950869

MISCELLANEOUS

MISCELLANEOUS

Indian Male, 26 M.Com with 4

yrs of Experience in Accounting

& Administration in a Financial

Company in India, seeks suitable

job, Currently in India.

Contact: India:-+918907212253

Akhil:-93626288, Email:

[email protected]

Admin Assistant. Having 5 years

experience in admin department

in reputed companies, presently

working in Muscat (NOC Avail-

able). GSM. 00968-98404122,

Email - panduru.jeevankumar@

gmail.com

Import & Export professional,

Experienced as Asst. Commercial

Manager for 15 years, Profi cient in

MS offi ce, Male Indian, Seeks suita-

ble placement, on Visit, #95484684

Indian male, 33 yrs, MBA-HR

generalist with 10 yrs including

training of Omani nationals.NOC

possible .Seeking a suitable job.

Contact :[email protected],

94179499

Safety offi cer, 3 years of experi-

ence in safety certifi cations: BE

(electrical and electronics engi-

neering), NEBOSH, IOSH, DHSE,

fi rst aid. Contact +97474018995,

mail:[email protected],

skype:midhunmike

Electronics Technician , 4 Years

experience as Electronics service

engineer. Knowledge in all type of

Electronics items. Looking for suit-

able placement. GSM- 99105043

Indian/male(25)/MBA /2 years

experience in channel sales and

distribution management. on visit

visa. available for immediate join-

ing. Contact: 96914068,


Looking for a part time accounting

& admin job. Contact 99196621.

Indian male, network cabling

technician (19 years Gulf experi-

ence) seeking for suitable place-

ment. NOC available. Contact :

0091-8089909265 (India),

E mail: [email protected]

Indian male 26 years, Graduate in

BBM & having Diploma in Logis-

tics with 3 years of experience in

Banking and Accounts looking for

suitable placement. Contact : + 968

97166820/ +91 9895102356

Email :[email protected]

Indian male,B.Com + Dip. Logistic

2year experience looking for a job

in Accounts/Logistics Field. Pres-

ently on Visit Visa # 93884951,


Indian male, 40 Years, B. Com,

having 10 years experience in

Oman, Tally & ERP- looking for

suitable placement ( NOC and

Oman driving license available)

Tel- +91 89 43 109897

Rajeev. [email protected]

HSE Engineer, Indian male, 5.5

Plus years Experience in Oil &

Gas Working in Shclumberger.

NEBOSH, IOSH, & NDT Certi-

fi ed, M Tech in HSE, CONTACT-

[email protected],

Mobile- +91 9867016808

Indian female 10 years exp as cook

in Oman. South Indian &

Gujarati special looking for job,

company or restaurant. #90559292

Indian Male 30 year GCC driving

license and past experience as

project coordinator looking for a

suitable position. Project Coordina-

tion, Sales Executive, Marketing

Executive or any other suitable

post. Contact number -97070427

Assistant Accountant - B.Com

Graduate with excellent overall

skills. 2 Years of experience. Ready

for immediate joining.

Contact: [email protected],

968-92049215

HSE Engineer,Indian male, 5.5

Plus years Experience in Oil & Gas

Working in Shclumberger

NEBOSH,IOSH, & NDT Certi-

fi ed, M Tech in HSE. CONTACT-

[email protected]

Mobile- +91 9867016808

Software Engineer with 5 + plus

years of experience in Infosys

ltd on visit visa seeking suit-

able vacancy in oman. Email :

steff [email protected] mob:

96896246205 / 96897032284

Indian male, 24 yrs, B. Com Grad-

uate more than 1 year experienced

in accounts planning to come for a

family visit in oman seeking for a

suitable placement .

Contact : 99339544 / 99743709

A/C & Fridge Technician 25 years

experience in Oman India seeks

suitable placement.# 95680380


MISCELLANEOUS

SECRETARIAL & OFFICE

Filipino Female, having exp in

Shipping, Forwarding and Lo-

gistics/Customer Support/Offi ce

and HR Administration with good

Communication and Computer

Skills. Looking for suitable posi-

tion. Contact: 96542559

Indian Male more than 10 years

gulf experience in Offi ce / Sales

Coordinator, Admin, Secretarial

and purchase with good com-

puter skills. Holding Oman Driving

license. Looking for suitable place-

ment. Contact 99709336

Looking for part time job Secre-tarial / Data Entry / Documenta-

tion available every day after 5:00

pm Friday / Saturday full day area

preferred Ruwi/ CBD/ MBD /

Al Khuwair. Contact: 90414827

SALES / MARKETING

SALES / MARKETING

The Business Development Man-ager, Iraqi, exp. 15 Years Inside and

outside Oman following activities:

construction(Very strong and quali-

fi ed to bringing business for civil

work Or any type of the construction

work for many million per year with

a good exp. in pricing and collect

payment and cash fl ow & marketing

projects & investments & tenders &

real estate. Contact :- 92385033

10 years ICT Business develop-

ment & project management exp

in Oman looking for suitable sen-

ior position. Contact: 98987654

Indian male MBA Marketing and

PGDM HR seeking job.

Contact: 97127799


4 years experience in computer

hardware & Sales B.Com discontin-

ued . Contact: 99859970 / 90996171

Building material purchaser. Contact: 99053510

35 years male, Lebanese holding

British passport, 10 years of experi-

ence in procurement, Omani Gov-

ernment tenders, setup marketing

plans & strategies, importing, Organ-

izing events, management, have car,

NOC available. Contact 94123939


Indian male MBA Sales Market-

ing business development with

10 years of vast experience 5

years GCC 5 years India excellent

communication skills presently in

Oman on visit visa looking for best

opportunity. Contact: 97946069

Email: faizanahmad2308@yahoo.

com

Indian male 26 years having 4.5

years of experience in Oman as

Sales & Marketing having Oman

D/L visa, NOC / Release available

seeking for suitable post.

Contact: 98843139

MBA Marketing, Executive Post,

Omani Driving License available,

14 years Experience in Multina-

tional Groups in Sales & Marketing.

Contact 91685048

13 years experienced Salesman

seeking job, holds valid Omani

driving license. NOC also available,

needs visa change urgently, expe-

rience in mobiles and electronics

sale. Contact: 97900338

MBA (Marketing) Sales & Mar-

keting Executive with 4 years of

experience in Sales & Business De-

velopment in FMCG sector is look-

ing for best opportunity in Muscat

at present available in Muscat on

visit visa. GSM: 95840153.

Mail: akbarshareef786@gmail.

com,

Indian male BBA in Marketing &

fi nance have 3 years work experi-

ence in Oman with driving license

seeking for suitable placement.

Contact: 96007885

Procurement / Estimation male 15

years experience in Oman work-

ing with reputed company seeks

suitable placements. N.O.C available.

Contact: 93508898


Indian male looking for jobs as

driver storekeeper or salesman.

Contact: 93925621

Male Indian 36 years market-

ing Sales 12 years experience M.A

degree currently on visit visa ready

to join. Contact: 00968 94068878


4 years experienced Automobile

Marketing/Sales Manager of Indian

origin, 25yrs age on visiting visa

seeks suitable job in Oman.

Contact 95298876.

Indian male 12 yrs experience in

sales & administration seeks suit-

able placement. Contact: 97205114

Pakistani male, Graduate over

9 years experience in Procurement,

Warehouse & Logistics, looking for

suitable placement currently on

visit visa. Contact: 968 91257663 ,

[email protected]

Senior Sales Executive, 10Yrs

Exp, India seeking immediate job.

Contact #+968 98444359,

+91 9880637906.

E: [email protected]

Indian male 37 years MBA

graduate in marketing with 9yrs of

experience in UAE in fi eld of brand

promotions & marketing with UAE

D/L on a visit seeking suitable

position. Conatct 95792820

Indian Female looking for a part

time opportunity (Graphic Design/

Teaching/Research Assistant/

Business Development/Admin-

istration) Contact: 95811820 or

[email protected]

IT professional, B.E. in IT, CCNA,

MCSA, MCSE, 3yrs exp. in IT, valid

Omani D/L seeking suitable place-

ment in IT/Network/Server sup-

port/Retail sales. # 91496939.

Indian male, Fire & Safety Engi-

neer having 1 year experience on

visit visa looking for suitable job.

Contact: 95208305


SENIOR ACCOUNTANT-M. Com

Finance-Indian with 7 years expe-

rience in Finance & Accounts up

to fi nalization. Having D/L & NOC.

Mob:94122464,

[email protected]

Indian female, 27 yrs, B.E

(Telecom) with 3 yrs exp in IBM

(India) as Senior Security Delivery

Analyst. Now on family visa seek-

ing for suitable position.

Contact: 95600437

Electrical & Electronics diploma

engineer Indian male 22 years,

2 years experience currently in

visit visa. Contact 93047707

[email protected]

Tea boy looking for job Name:

Man Bahadar Contact: 97859837

Indian Female, 29 Yrs Age, M.Sc

Microbiology, looking for Job any

reputed organization / Hospitals,

seeks suitable position.

Contact : 95218424 / 9610 6604.

On Family Residence Visa.

IT professional, B.E. in IT, CCNA,

MCSA, MCSE, 3yrs exp. in IT,

valid Omani D/L seeking suitable

placement in IT/Network/Server

support/Retail sales. #91496939.

Indian Male B-Com Graduate

1 year, experience in market sur-

vey, Valid Driving License,

looking for any suitable post.

Contact: 92567020 / 96930392

Indian Female, M.Sc Computer

Science, Seeking suitable place-

ment in Muscat Area.

Contact : 98660672


TOURS

TOURS

RENT A CAR

25 - 50 seater bus with PDO & BP

specifi cation for monthly rent &

small car with driver.

Contact: 99839898

SITUATION WANTEDCARGO

Dolphin Watch, Dhow Cruise with

Buffet, & Land Tours Al- Ainain

Marine Tours contact 98029602,

92808636

We arrange tours & accommoda-

tion at all the beautiful places in

Oman. Contact 99839898

Moon Travel L.L.CSaudi Arabian Government approved agent

Contact: Tariq Al Balushi - 99218069 Ahmed Maseehuddin - 99353611, O ce: 24790746/24706217

Umrah Package by Road & AirBus Departures- Apr 19, May 03, 17 & 31.2016

Ramadan Schedule - Jun 06, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26 & 30.2016

RENT A CARBest Rates for Saloon

Contact: 97869042 / 95730550

[email protected]

SITUATION WANT-

ED

BUSINESS


Required partner investor to

build an apartment in Al Mobelah.

Contact: 99355330

WEB, ERP and Business Intel-

ligence (BI) creation and manage-

ment at rock bottom price.

Contact: http//webviewoman

Investment opportunity for

lucrative building and decorative

product. Contact: 99421513


Tender board registered Con-

struction Company for lease / run.

Contact: 92841089

Business Partner required for a

running insurance company.

Contact: 92821312

AVAILABLE

Party & Wedding equipment rentals. Full line, from Tables, Linen & Skirt-

ing, Chairs & Chair covers, Cutlery, Crockery, Glassware, Chafi ng Dishes,

Ice Sculptures, to Large Sound Systems and spectacular lighting.

Call Andrea 9606 2222 for Catering and Croyden 9623 5555 for Sound &

Light. ww.tunesoman.com, E-mail: [email protected]

Indian B-Com Graduate 1 year

Experience in market survey, Valid

Driving License, looking for any

suitable post. Contact: 92567020

/ 96930392, shwayanad@gmail.

com

Indian male, M. Com, 11 years

experience in the fi eld of account-

ancy and Stores. Good knowledge

in SAP, Tally, oracle, MS offi ce and

Excel seeks suitable placement.

Contact 92859733

Indian male, M.Com, 7 years

Oman experience in the fi eld of

accounts and valid oman driving

license & NOC . Good knowledge

in SAP, Tally, oracle, MS offi ce and

Excel seeks suitable placement.

Contact 92859733

Indian male 42, BE-Civil 13 years

experience in Road construction.


having valid Oman driving license.

Contact: 95225214, Email:

[email protected]

Bachelor in Hotel Management

Having 13 years experience in

Catering Industry in all aspects of

Operations with D/L looking out for

a suitable placement.

Contact 90654826


Indian male, M. Com with 3 yr

Oman Exp in Accounts with valid

NOC & D/L on Visit Visa, available

to join immediately .

GSM :94744575

HSE Engineer, Indian male, 4 Plus

years experience in Oil & Gas, Work-

ing in Shclumberger,NEBOSH,IOSH,

& NDT Certifi ed, M Tech in HSE.

Mail- [email protected]

Mobile- +91 9867016808

Indian Female on a visit visa hav-

ing master degree seeking suitable

placement in any fi eld, 1 ,5 year ex-

perience in HR .Contact 91467576.

Indian female 27 yrs, Diploma in

Aviation & Hospitality manage-

ment, seeking suitable placement.

Curnetly in Oman, NOC Available.

Contact 94880684

Senior Accountant, NOC avail-

able, more than 5 years exp., born

& bought up in Oman, Account-

ing upto fi nalization, computer

skills tally9, Sage ERP ACCPAC

500(6.0A), Vcams, Audit ,valid

Oman driving license, lan-

guages known English, Arabic,

Hindi. Can join immediately.

Tel: (+968) 96339599, E-mail-

([email protected])

Indian with 3 years for experience

in sales and marketing fl uency in

English, Arabic, Hindi, Tamil and

Malayalam looking for suitable job.

Also hold valid Driving License,

currently in oman Mob : 93451439

Indian male network cabling tech-

nician (19-years Gulf experience)

seeking for suitable placement.

Contact 0091-8089909265 (India),


D8 T U E S D AY, M AY 1 0 , 2 0 1 6

DAILY GUIDEEmail: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624

*Classifi ed Advertisement space booking with text,

should be done till 12.00 noon for next

day’s publication. * Subject to space availability

CATERING SERVICES We do industrial catering

service, Canteen / mess,

3 times packed meals and

all types of catering events.

Contact: 92188777 / 99249899

SITUATION WANTEDSERVICES

SERVICESWe Provide Cleaners,

Offi ce boys, Cleaning Contracts, General cleaning etc.

Al Mudakhir Nati onal Est. LLC Contact : 94277020

A/C Maintenance & Servicing,

Fridge, Washing machine & Dish

washer repairing, Painting & Clean-

ing services, Electrical & plumbing.

Contact 99447257 / 97014234 /

24504281

Service & maintenance of split &

window A/C. Contact: 95273713

We do building maintenance all

kind of works. Contact 99247663

Water proofi ng ABUQABAS-

Contact 99320217/24788722

Al farzdaq Al Fedi Trad and Cont

Maintenance services electric,

plumbing and A/C. Contact:

96524904 /94285064

Pest control & Building cleaning all kinds of pest control building. Cleaning ti les /

Marble polishing monthly/ Yearly contracts available.

Contact: 98814733 /98814740 Al Husn Cleaning L.L.C

Pest control treatments, Ocean center LLC

Contact 99344723

House shifting. Contact

99708138

Marble crystallization & grinding, cleaning & carpet shampooing.

Ocean center LLC.

Contact 99344723

Marble crystallization & grinding, Ocean center LLC

Contact: 99344723

Carpet Shampoo, marble & tile

polishing, pest control &

anti-termite treatment, general

cleaning painting,Plumbing,

Electrical, shifting. Contact Mun-

dhir Al-Rizaiqi trading. L.L.C.

Contact: 24810137, 99450130

Complete building maintenance

Midawa Trading Est.

Contact: 94614479

Marble Restoration, Mosaic tiles

polishing, carpet shampooing,

maintenance. Contact ABU QA-

BAS- 99320217 /24788722

CAD drawings Archi/ MEP CAD –

comply BIM. Contact: 91233975

House Shifting Packing. Contact: 99657644 / 98518013

GUARANTEED CLEANING: Carpet & sofa shampooing,

Contact 99314807/24792998

Split & window A/c servicing &

maintenance. Contact 93769089 /

95323517

MARBLE CRYSTALLIZATION restore the original shine of

your marble. contact 24793614/

99314807

Window & split unit A.C servicing

& repairing. Contact: 99557080

House shifting & transporting.

Contact 92490422

Split unit & window unit A.C

servicing & maintenance.

Contact: 96236476

Split unit & widow unit A.C servic-

ing & maintenance.

Contact: 95323517 / 93769089

SITUATION WANTEDEDUCATION/CLASSES/COMP./WEB.

Spoken Arabic class for Non Arabic Speakers & English

class for Malayalam Speakers in Azaiba and Ruwi

• Learn in two months• Satisfaction guaranteed

Tel: 95244310

Wanted partner handover 20% to 30% running building Construction

Company. Contact: 97491117

Karate and self defense classes at Azaiba 18 Nov Street. RO 10 per month

twice a week Monday and Tuesday 6. 30 TO 7. 30. PM. Contact: 98294551

MANPOWER

TRANSPORTATION

Transportation available in Ruwi,

MSQ, Al Azaiba, Al Hail, Al Khoud

area. Contact: 94297820

Transportation. Contact:91310107

Picking and drop Al Khuwair to

Rusayl. #91287470 / 98957524

Transportation available Ruwi to

Al Khuwair, Ghubra & Azaiba.

Contact: 91103909

Transportation. Contact: 95190627

Transportation required from

Qurum to WadiKabir at afternoon

only 1 PM. Contact - 99012165

Transportation. Contact 99508282

Transportation. Contact 92015894

DRIVING

Times of Oman - May 10, 2016

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Transcript of Times of Oman - May 10, 2016