Sabah al-khair, and a very good morning to you all.

For thousands of years, the monsoon winds across the Arabian Sea have connected our two shores. They carried ships, merchants and commodities. These carried ideas, skills, traditions, and people. Over generations, these exchanges turned into bonds of trust and friendship that have endured to this day.

India - Oman CEPA is built on this legacy. A legacy with a very clear vision to transform our historic economic relationship into a modern partnership of trade, investment, innovation, skills, and shared prosperity.

We can all agree that CEPA is more than a Trade agreement. It brings our countries even closer through trade in goods and services, investment, professional mobility, and regulatory cooperation within a single framework. It seeks to give our businesses greater market access, clearer rules, and greater predictability, while maintaining appropriate safeguards for sensitive sectors and domestic priorities in both countries. In other words, it is not simply about how much India and Oman trade. It is about how much more our two economies can do together, the foundations for this have already been set into motion since it’s implementation on June 1st, 2026.

Market Access

One of the most significant achievements under the CEPA is the scale of market access. India has secured duty-free access covering 99.38 per cent of India's exports. This represents a very substantial improvement over the previous situation, presenting significant opportunities for Indian companies across engineering goods, industrial equipment, textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, plastics, food products, marine products, gems and jewellery, and many other sectors. For Oman, CEPA also creates significant new opportunities in the Indian market. India has offered tariff liberalisation, covering 94.81 per cent of imports from Oman by value. This represents a substantial expansion of market access for Omani exporters, particularly across energy and mineral products, chemicals and fertilisers, metals, petrochemicals and other industrial products, while creating opportunities to expand exports of selected agricultural and processed food products. At the same time, both countries have maintained a calibrated approach to sensitive sectors, with exclusions and tariff-rate quotas providing appropriate safeguards for domestic agriculture and manufacturing. 

Food Security

Given the global scenario , food security becomes an area of eminent importance and is perhaps one of the clearest areas where our interests converge. As India and Oman have been trusted partners for millennia , the  CEPA can strengthen these established supply chains,not only creating opportunities for new products and new partnerships but allowing us to support each other and the world in case of supply chain shocks.

MSME

This agreement is not limited to big industry houses but the most important beneficiaries are the smaller businesses behind these exports, our MSMEs, artisans, weavers, farmers, fishermen, manufacturers and entrepreneurs.

For India, this is particularly important because our export economy is geographically diverse. The benefits of greater market access can reach manufacturing and production clusters across the country from Tirupur and Coimbatore in textiles, to Surat and Jaipur in gems and jewellery, Panipat in home textiles, Moradabad in handicrafts, and numerous agricultural and food-processing centres across our states.

For Oman, the benefits of greater market access can similarly extend across the Sultanate’s diverse economic and production base. Sohar, with its aluminium, metals, petrochemical and industrial clusters, Duqm, with its growing industrial, logistics and fisheries ecosystem, and Salalah, with its port-led logistics, fisheries and food-processing activities, are well positioned to benefit from deeper access to the Indian market. Omani producers of energy products, fertilisers, chemicals, minerals, metals and industrial inputs can find expanded opportunities in India, while agricultural and fisheries producers, including dates, seafood and other food products, can benefit from access to one of the world's largest consumer markets. The CEPA can therefore support not only higher Omani exports, but also greater investment, value addition and integration of Oman’s economic clusters into wider regional and global supply chains. 

Equality of Benefit and resulting Investment

As per recent research work by scholars at Sultan Qaboos University, it is estimated that Oman's exports to India could increase by approximately USD 567 million, while India's exports to Oman could grow by around USD 657 million. These figures point to something very important. CEPA is not about one country gaining at the expense of the other. It is about complementarity. Oman's strengths in areas such as energy, fertilisers and chemicals, combined with India's strengths in manufacturing, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, services and human capital, create opportunities for both economies.

Greater cooperation on food safety, veterinary certification, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, labelling and quality assurance can help Omani producers take fuller advantage of India's vast consumer market.And this is where CEPA becomes more than a tariff agreement. It can encourage investment in agriculture, storage, cold chains, logistics and food processing, strengthening Oman's food system while creating new opportunities for trade.

Healthcare and Pharma

Healthcare provides another powerful example of what this partnership can achieve. India is a major global producer of affordable medicines, while Oman has a growing demand for high-quality pharmaceutical products. Under CEPA, eligible Indian pharmaceutical products approved by recognised stringent regulatory authorities, are made available more efficiently.

Oman as a Logistics hub

There is also a wider regional dimension to the agreement. For Indian businesses, Oman is not only an important bilateral market. Its strategic location and major logistics hubs including Sohar, Duqm and Salalah, give it the potential to serve as a gateway to the wider Gulf and regional markets. For Omani businesses, India's enormous consumer market and expanding manufacturing capabilities offer equally significant opportunities. This creates possibilities not only for exports, but for joint ventures, co-investment, manufacturing partnerships, technology collaboration and regional supply chains.

Call to go beyond Governments

Governments can negotiate agreements. Governments can create frameworks. But it is ultimately the private sector that turns agreements into economic opportunity and CEPA has opened the doors.

Now, I encourage businesses in India and Oman to walk through them. I encourage our Chambers of Commerce, our exporters, investors, startups, and established companies to look beyond traditional buyer-seller relationships. Let us explore joint ventures, co-investment, technology partnerships and integrated supply chains. Let us identify opportunities where our strengths complement each other. And let us ensure that the benefits of this agreement reach not only our largest enterprises, but also MSMEs, entrepreneurs, farmers, artisans and young people. A new chapter in an enduring relationship. 

Let the next chapter of India–Oman friendship be a chapter defined by greater opportunity, stronger resilience, deeper economic integration and shared prosperity for generations to come.

Shukran jazeelan.
Thank you very much.