4,467 Omani Factory Jobs in One Year. Here Is the 98-Project Machine Behind That Number.

If you asked most Omanis where the new private-sector jobs are coming from, they would probably say finance or tourism. The honest answer is: a lot of them are coming from factories. In 2025, Oman's industrial cities hired 4,467 Omani citizens into manufacturing and industrial jobs, nearly double the 2,500-person target that had been set. This did not happen by accident. It happened because of 98 projects now in the pipeline.

98 Projects: What That Actually Means

Madayn is the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates, the body that builds and operates Oman's ten industrial cities from Sohar in the north to Raysut in Dhofar. In January 2026, it published a five-year plan: 98 projects between now and 2030, backed by RO 245 million for infrastructure alone.

The breakdown matters. Fifty-one of the 98 are development and operations projects: new roads, upgraded utilities, expanded industrial plots. Thirty-six are institutional improvements. Eleven are environmental sustainability projects, including a major industrial solar facility at Sohar whose financing was locked in May 2026 and which will supply clean electricity to more than 200 businesses on site.

The RO 245 million is infrastructure only. The factories sitting on that infrastructure represent RO 7.78 billion in private investment already inside Madayn's cities, with a 2030 target of RO 8.6 billion. The state builds the platform; the private sector builds the factories on top.

What Is Actually Being Built Right Now

Sohar Industrial City is the clearest window into what the pipeline looks like in practice.

The United Solar facility is a $1.35 billion polysilicon plant on a 160,000-square-metre plot, designed to produce 100,000 tonnes of polysilicon annually. It is the first of its kind in the Middle East, making Oman a supplier of the raw material that goes into solar panels globally. That is not just an energy story; it is an export story.

The Sohar Titanium project, spanning 120,000 square metres, is designed to produce 150,000 tonnes of titanium slag per year, a high-value input for aerospace and medical manufacturing. The project was targeting commercial shipments from mid-2026.

In December 2025, Madayn launched six new projects in Sohar in a single month, including a plastics manufacturing facility at RO 9 million and a RO 25 million oil industry project from the National Petrochemical and Investment Company.

At Al Buraimi, close to the UAE border, a $26 million steel and non-ferrous metals plant broke ground in 2025 alongside battery manufacturing, iron production, and tyre recycling operations. Al Buraimi products reach Gulf markets faster than almost any other Omani industrial site.

Beyond the existing ten cities, four new industrial cities are under development in Mudhaibi, Suwaiq, Thumrait, and Madha, wilayats that have historically received less of Oman's development spending. For families living there, that is a visible, local shift.

The Jobs Math

Oman's industrial cities currently employ around 85,000 people in total. Of those, approximately 30,780 are Omani citizens, an Omanization rate of around 36 percent. That rate already exceeds what the UAE's private sector achieves nationally, though Oman's own 2030 target is 44 percent.

The 4,467 jobs created in 2025 nearly doubled the 2,500 annual target. The Omanization programme, run jointly with the Ministry of Labour, had already generated more than 3,000 Omani positions across the two years prior. Together, the industrial city network has become one of the most consistent job-creation channels in the Vision 2040 toolkit.

Oman's broader industrial workforce is targeted to grow from 248,000 today to 277,000 by 2030. As Oman's delivery record on its last five-year plan shows, the industrial sector has been one of the areas where stated targets consistently translate into real numbers.

Who Is Responsible

Madayn owns and manages the industrial city infrastructure. OPAZ, the Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones, runs the free and special economic zones alongside it. Both are aligned under the 11th Five-Year Development Plan (2026-2030).

The investment pipeline is not purely domestic. In 2025, Oman's zones and industrial cities collectively attracted RO 1.4 billion ($3.6 billion) in new private investment. OPAZ is also activating the Oman-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement inside its zones, with manufacturing, logistics, and IT among the priority sectors. For Omani manufacturers, that means lower-cost access to Indian components and raw materials.

Exports from Madayn's industrial cities currently total RO 3.79 billion per year. The 2030 target is RO 4.3 billion. Every riyal of manufactured exports is a riyal that does not need to come from oil.

Why This Matters for Ordinary Omanis

Manufacturing jobs tend to pay more than entry-level retail and hospitality work, and they offer clearer career progression over time. A 24-year-old in Mudhaibi or Thumrait does not need to relocate to Muscat to find that kind of work if an industrial city opens nearby.

The 98-project pipeline is not a headline. It is the infrastructure that makes the next 4,467 Omani factory jobs possible. For anyone asking whether Vision 2040 is producing something they can actually touch, the industrial cities are one of the clearest answers available right now.