MUSCAT (Dispatches) – Oman’s Sultan, Haitham bin Tarik, visited Qatar on Monday, his second official overseas trip since assuming power last year, Anadolu News Agency reports.
He was greeted by Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, upon arrival at Doha International Airport, the Qatari state news agency, QNA, reported.
Talks between the two leaders are expected to focus on ways of strengthening bilateral relations between Oman and Qatar, QNA said.
In July, Sultan Haitham made his first official overseas trip to Saudi Arabia since he assumed power in Oman in January 2020, following the death of Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
Oman and Qatar signed agreements on military cooperation, taxation, tourism, ports, labor and investment as Oman seeks to invigorate its debt-burdened economy, the state news agencies of both the Persian Gulf states said.
The deals included an agreement on double taxation and tax evasion on income and capital taxes, and an investment cooperation agreement between sovereign wealth funds the Qatar Investment Authority and the Oman Investment Authority, said Qatar’s Amiri Diwan, the administrative office of the emir, on Monday.
Further details on the deals were not immediately available.
Since the oil price crash in 2014, Oman, a country of around five million people, has accumulated large amounts of debt. It recently embarked on a medium-term plan to fix its finances that were also hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.