Oman's $84 Billion Foreign Money Pile: Oil Grew 5.7%. Power and Water Grew 46%.

Every time you switch on a light or fill a glass of tap water in Oman, foreign money now has a slightly bigger share in the plant behind it. The latest official figures show foreign investment in Oman's electricity and water sector jumped 46% in a year. Oil still owns most of the pile. The interesting movement is in the smaller sectors.

Key Takeaways

• Foreign investors held OMR 32.2 billion (about $84 billion) in Oman at the end of June 2026, up 6.4% in a year.
• Power and water grew 46%, construction 41% and banking 18.4%. Oil and gas grew 5.7%.
• Emirati investment rose 41% to OMR 868 million, while Bahraini holdings fell 39%.
• Between March and June, the total grew by only OMR 14 million.
• The new five-year plan wants more than OMR 10 billion in extra private investment, and a new business-environment programme starts in early 2027.

The $84 billion, explained

Preliminary data from the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), carried by Oman News Agency on 17 October, shows foreign direct investment (FDI) in Oman reached OMR 32.211 billion by the end of the second quarter of 2026, up 6.4% on a year earlier.

That figure is a stock. It is the total value of everything foreign companies own in Oman, from oil fields to bank shares, built up over decades. It is not the money that arrived this year.

For a sense of scale, the UAE drew $48.24 billion in new FDI in 2025 alone, according to UNCTAD. Oman's entire accumulated pile is worth less than two years of UAE inflows. The two numbers measure different things, but the gap is real.

Oil and gas still holds OMR 25.8 billion, about 80 of every 100 rials, the same pattern we flagged when Oman's foreign investment first hit $83.7 billion.

The small sectors growing fastest

The fuller NCSI breakdown, reported by Oman Daily, shows where growth is happening outside oil:

The jump in power and water is fast even over six months. The Ministry of Finance's release of year-end NCSI data put the sector at OMR 318.7 million at the end of 2025, with construction at OMR 99.1 million.

But these sectors are still small. Power and water is about 1.3 rials of every 100 foreign rials in Oman. The data also says nothing about electricity or water bills, so nobody should read a price change into it.

Gulf neighbours are leaning in

Britain still owns about half of everything, at OMR 16.766 billion (up 6.6%). The United States follows with OMR 8.685 billion (up 7.3%), then Kuwait at OMR 1.385 billion and China at OMR 903.8 million, according to the same NCSI release.

The Gulf shift is in the smaller numbers. Emirati holdings rose 41% to OMR 868 million and Qatari holdings 15% to OMR 805 million, while Bahraini holdings fell 39% to OMR 302 million (Oman Daily). At the end of 2025, UAE investment stood at OMR 626.2 million, so it grew by about OMR 242 million in six months.

The release does not show which sectors the Emirati money went into, so linking it to the power and water surge would be guesswork.

The catch: a flat quarter

At the end of March, the stock stood at OMR 32.20 billion, or OMR 32.197 billion in the detailed figures. Three months later it was OMR 32.211 billion. That is an increase of roughly OMR 14 million, about $36 million.

Yet NCSI recorded about OMR 1.932 billion in investment flows during the quarter, OMR 1.397 billion of it into oil and gas. The release did not explain the gap. Under standard FDI accounting, the stock can grow more slowly than inflows when foreign firms send capital home, repay loans to parent companies, or revalue assets.

The oil and gas stock and Britain's holdings both dipped slightly between March and June. All these figures are preliminary and may be revised. One quarter is not a trend, but annual growth slowed from 8.7% in March to 6.4% in June.

Who is supposed to make the money flow

NCSI does the counting. Invest Oman, under the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, pitches Oman to foreign companies. The targets come from the 11th Five-Year Plan.

According to Oman Daily, the plan aims to attract around OMR 2 billion a year in private domestic and foreign investment above its baseline scenario, more than OMR 10 billion over the plan period. It also wants investment to average about 32% of GDP, compared with 28% in the baseline. The Cabinet has also approved a National Programme for Enhancing an Investment-Attractive Business Environment, due to launch in early 2027.

That machinery is tracked under Vision 2040's private sector investment and international cooperation priority. Our earlier look at where Oman's new investment money is actually going shows how many of those deals become projects.

Why this matters for ordinary Omanis

Oil investment keeps the state budget running, but most people never see it. The sectors now growing fastest are ones you deal with every day: the power station, the water plant, your bank, the building site down the road.

If that pattern holds, foreign investment stops being a story about oil companies and starts showing up in neighbourhoods, contracts and jobs you can actually apply for. The things to watch are whether the flat quarter turns into a trend, and whether the 2027 programme actually makes it easier to set up a business. You can follow the wider numbers on our Vision 2040 progress indicators page.