Oman has renewed its historic links to the City of London with pledges by Sultan Haitham to grow joint investment and keep trade flowing under the shadow of the Iran war.
Sultan Haitham, who is on the first Omani state visit in 44 years to the UK, used a banquet address in the finance, shipping and insurance hub to pledge that ties dating back to 1647 would blossom.
Referring to how the London merchants signed a deal in that year to access Oman's ports, Sultan Haitham said: “Not for the last time the private sector got there first.”
“We can see that bilateral investments and trade are moving in a positive direction, with concrete efforts being made to encourage investment and building stronger partnership in sectors such as sustainability, financial services and technology.”
Speaking at the City's Guildhall, Lady Mayor Susan Langley said Oman's role in maintaining free navigation in the Strait of Hormuz was globally important.
“We understand that the freedom of the seas, the security of trade routes, and global stability are the foundations upon which prosperity and peace are built,” she said. “Our partnership has helped protect those foundations for generations, allowing trade to flourish.”
Further treaties followed in 1798 and 1800, while the UK was involved in a counter-insurgency in Oman as recently as the 1980s.
Oman and the UK have signed a series of deals during Sultan Haitham's four-day visit with more than more than £1 billion of investment pledged. One pact was to “secure maritime co-operation through strengthened information-sharing and knowledge exchange with the Omani Maritime Security Centre”.
Sultan Haitham met Prime Minister Andy Burnham in Downing Street before the banquet, where the UK leader “gave his thanks for the Oman’s work to reopen the Strait of Hormuz”.
“Both leaders agreed on the need to keep the Strait open to reduce the pressure on global supply chains and ease the impact on people at home,” the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.
Sultan Haitham acknowledged that the situation facing his country had “not been great” for more than 40 years but that his country was committed to doing whatever it could to normalise tensions.
“We have great relations with Britain and we are all the time co-ordinating our moves and also getting help sometimes,” he said.
Start-up and innovation focus
Sultan Haitham visited the former Olympic Park in East London on Thursday, which has been one of the capital’s flagship projects for growth and regeneration. The visit was led by the UK's Minister of State for Trade, Anas Sarwar.
At Here East, a cluster of buildings that consists of museums and businesses, Sultan Haitham met with chief executives and founders of British and Omani start-ups working at the frontiers of space, health care and artificial intelligence.
“What we're showcasing is the best of British technology in those areas, with a view to catalyse on that deepening of that partnership,” said Saj Huq, chief executive of Plexal, an innovation-focused company at Here East that presented the start-up showcase to Sultan Haitham.
Among them is Bio Orbit, founded in 2023 by Katie King and Leonor Teles, which hopes to manufacture drugs in space. The company raised £9.8 million ($13.1 million) as part of their seed-funding round. Mr Huq told the National that BioOrbit is “reformulating medicines by using crystallisation science in space to develop drug forms that can improve how medicines are delivered and used”.
“There are really clear benefits to society and they're a real sector leader,” he said.
Another Here East business is SAIF Autonomy, a start-up that builds safety layers for autonomous technology and embodied AI. “They are operating across both industry and defence and government” and “helping drive autonomy into complex systems in a responsible way”, Mr Huq added.
The Omani climate tech company 44.01, which has also laid foundations in the UK, also played a part in the presentation. The company captures carbon emissions and buries them underground, using a natural process that occurs when the gas comes into contact with peridotite, a rock commonly found in Oman.
The company won the Prince of Wales’ Earthshot Prize in 2022. “Part of the showcase is showing that we've already got these ties,” Mr Huq said. “The innovation ecosystems are already collaborating and they're growing in region.”
Hormuz talks
Iran has claimed a handful of attacks on vessels using a so-called Oman route through the Strait of Hormuz this week alone.
Figures from data provider Kpler show that oil shipments out of the Gulf hit a high of 24.6 million barrels a day in the week to October 18. The volumes jump and slump depending on the hostility from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and average figures for October to date remain below levels before the war broke out in February.
Ships in the Gulf and Red Sea transit hostile narrow straits with their automatic information systems switched off and there is a further lack of clarity about these journeys due to the military-related withholding of satellite imagery over the region.
The UK and Oman signed an agreement to build an artificial intelligence data centre in Salalah involving partners from both nations. Officials said the first phase was expected to exceed £1 billion and would create more than 100 highly skilled jobs across the UK by exporting British expertise and attracting returns for UK-backed investors.
The UK first signed a Sovereign Investment Partnership with Oman in 2022, with Oman investing £1.7 billion in the UK since its creation, a Foreign Office statement said.
