VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHMS #0251/01 0920955
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 010955Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY MUSCAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9434
INFO RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC

UNCLAS MUSCAT 000251 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARP, NEA/RA 
STATE PASS USTR FOR JBUNTIN 
COMMERCE FOR ITA THOFFMAN, PASS TO ANTI-BOYCOTT COMPLIANCE 
OFFICE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD ECON PREL MU
SUBJECT: OMAN REITERATES COMMITMENT TO ELIMINATE OUTDATED 
ARAB LEAGUE BOYCOTT LANGUAGE 
 
¶1. (U) This is an action request; please see paragraph 8. 
 
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Summary 
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¶2. (U) Omani officials reiterated their commitment to 
eliminate the use of outdated boycott language during 
meetings with officials from the Department of Commerce's 
(DOC) Anti-boycott Compliance Office.  The Embassy will work 
with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to follow-up on 
future boycott-related incidents reported to the DOC.  End 
Summary. 
 
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Pledge to Work Together 
----------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) On March 15, Department of Commerce Anti-boycott 
Compliance officials Ned Weant and Frederick Davidson, 
accompanied by NEA Regional Affairs officer Joe Scovitch and 
Econoff, met with Dr. Said al-Riyami, Economic Expert, 
Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and Rashid al-Maskary, 
Technical Expert, Oman Tender Board, to discuss the recent 
increase in prohibited boycott request language reported by 
U.S. companies.  (Note: Prohibited requests, while still 
relatively few in number, rose from 11 in 2006 to 26 in 2007. 
 End Note.)  Riyami reaffirmed that Oman did not have any 
boycott laws in effect, and referred to a 2006 letter from 
Commerce and Industry Maqbool bin Ali Sultan to his cabinet 
colleagues reminding them of this fact.  He further pledged 
to work with the DOC and the Embassy to address the continued 
presence of outdated language in tender documents. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Maskary added that the Tender Board would look into 
its standard tender templates to ensure that outdated boycott 
language did not appear in its documents.  He cautioned, 
however, that the private sector was outside the purview of 
the government, and therefore was at liberty to exclude 
potential clients who had business dealings with Israel.  DOC 
officials responded that since prohibited requests by the 
private sector generally referred to outdated Omani boycott 
regulations, the government had a duty to remind them that 
such language was no longer valid. 
 
¶5. (SBU) A follow-on meeting with Counselor Hamid bin Saif 
al-Rawahi, Deputy Chief of the Economic and Technical 
Cooperation Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, drew a 
similar commitment to ensure that U.S. commerce is not 
impeded by the presence of outdated boycott language in 
tenders.  Rawahi said that his office would lend necessary 
assistance in communicating with colleagues in the Ministry 
of Commerce and Industry regarding the presence of such 
language. 
 
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Outdated Language the Culprit 
----------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Anti-boycott officials also met with Mahmoud 
al-Fori, Head of Procurement at Sultan Qaboos University 
Hospital (SQUH), an entity responsible for 10 of the 26 
prohibited requests in 2007.  Fori expressed surprise that 
documentation used for hospital tenders had included boycott 
language, especially in light of the fact that the hospital 
had discontinued the use of such terminology in 1996.  He 
added that in 2006, the hospital's president was reminded by 
Commerce and Industry Maqbool bin Ali Sultan via memo that 
Oman had no boycott laws in effect.  M. Krishna, the 
hospital's pharmaceutical purchasing agent, confirmed that 
SQUH had not used boycott language in over nine years, and 
that it even purchased pharmaceuticals from Israeli company 
Teva through its London agent.  Fori concluded that private 
sector agents had been responsible for providing the wrong 
documentation, and stated that the hospital would investigate 
future boycott-related reports brought to its attention. 
 
¶7. (U) Following their meeting at SQUH, the U.S. officials 
consulted with Habib Hanna, Country Manager for NCR 
Corporation, which reported the presence of boycott language 
in tender documents supplied by Omantel, the government's 
fixed-line monopoly carrier.  (Note: Anti-boycott officials 
received a commitment from Omantel's Vice President for 
Corporate Affairs in 2005 to discontinue the use of outdated 
boycott language.  End Note.)  Hanna surmised that Omantel 
was, on occasion, using outdated tender documents.  He noted 
 
that when he had suggested the use of alternative text, 
Omantel was more than willing to accept it.  He agreed to 
bring subsequent findings of boycott language to the 
attention of the Embassy for action. 
 
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Action Request 
-------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The results of the meetings reported above show that 
continued use of boycott language in Oman has been the result 
of entities using outdated versions of tender documents. 
Given the firm commitment provided by Omani officials to 
follow-up on future incidents, Embassy requests that the 
DOC's Office of Anti-boycott Compliance send documentation in 
support of complaints to the Economic/Commercial Officer via 
email, so that s/he may coordinate appropriate action with 
the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.  Current Embassy point 
of contact is Economic/Commercial Officer Brian Grimm, who 
can be reached at GrimmBM@state.gov. 
GRAPPO