Chinese investors are planning a major blankets and carpets manufacturing project worth about $98 million in the upcoming China-Oman Industrial Park at the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Duqm, Oman, a media report said.

The giant plant, envisaging a total of six production lines, will manufacture and supply blankets and carpets made from synthetic fibres that are a value-added product associated with the petrochemicals and refining industry, reported Oman Observer.

Raw material for the project will be initially procured from China, but subsequently sourced locally when a world-class downstream petrochemicals industry materialises in the SEZ, it added.

Ali Shah, chairman of Oman Wanfang LLC, the main developer of the China-Oman Industrial Park, said the proposed blankets and carpets plant will come up on a 20-hectare site within the Park. Output is estimated at 12 million pieces of blankets and carpets per annum.

The synthetic fibres constituting the raw material for the project are manufactured only by a handful of countries in the region that possess the requisite technology, Shah added.

Oman Wanfang has also reached an agreement with SEZAD for the construction of a power plant and a desalination plant at the SEZ, Ali Shah added.