New guidelines for motorbike dealers in Oman

Muscat: As restrictions on motorbike registrations and licensing for expatriates continue for the seventh straight month, authorities have decided to announce new guidelines and solutions “soon” for motorcycle dealers in the Sultanate, the Times of Oman (TOO) has learnt.
Motorbike dealers in the Sultanate have been requesting authorities to withdraw what they term are “unannounced restrictions” on bike registrations and licensing for expatriates, arguing that dealers have been hit hard in the process.
“The government had restricted expats from riding bikes because some of them were using private bikes for commercial purposes or for catering. Those looking for motorbikes for their personal use or hobby are getting affected instead,” confirmed a top official of the Royal Oman Police (ROP).
“But we are working on solutions with the dealers. Very soon, we will come up with something that should address this difficulty,” the official said.
Sigh of Relief
Motorbike dealers are breathing a sigh of relief over the ROP’s new plans on the restrictions, which they said is slowly “killing our business.”
“We used to sell 45 to 50 bikes every month. Today, it’s not even 10 bikes because expats are not purchasing,” Sami Al Balaushi, sales manager, Honda (bike division) told TOO.
Al Balaushi said authorities are issuing licenses or registering superbikes owned by Omanis only, which has impacted the bike business in the last few months.
According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), only 812 motorbikes were registered in the Sultanate between January and November 2015, posting a downslide of 30.6 per cent.
Motor bike financers said they’re following the company policy of not financing low-wage employees.
“We finance only Omani applicants. We also finance expats working with ministries or the good employers,” Hashim of Al Khuwair-based National Finance told TOO.
Earlier, a prospective motorist would get the bike registered on the labour card. Then ROP would issue a Kaccha license (temporary license) during the training and test period and then a permanent license.
Dealers revealed that this wasn’t the case now.
“The ROP needs to come up with a solution that suits everyone in the market,” Khater Khales Al Adoobi, regional manager of Harley Davidson bikes in Oman told TOO.
“Omanis are more into speed biking. But our main customers are expats. We tried to balance and roll it up, but we are still suffering. Though we have managed to register some bikes recently, the overall restriction is hitting us hard,” he said.
Al Adoobi feared that dealers may be forced to wind up the motorbike business in the Sultanate “if the trend continues.”
Dealers also said they’re optimistic and look forward to the ROP’s solutions that should benefit all the parties involved.

With inputs from Tariq Al Haremi.