Oman in the GCC, the Arab League and IORA, and its Strategic Partnership with India

Background

The Embassy of India in Muscat describes the Sultanate of Oman as a strategic partner of India and an important interlocutor at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Arab League and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
The Omani Foreign Ministry's own list of its multilateral memberships records that Oman was a founding member of the GCC when it was established in 1981, became a member of the League of Arab States on 29 September 1971, became the 128th member of the United Nations on 7 October 1971, has been a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation since 1972 and joined the World Trade Organization in November 2000.
People-to-people contact between India and Oman is traced back 5,000 years; diplomatic relations were established in 1955, and the relationship was upgraded to a Strategic Partnership in 2008.
Oman hosts an Indian community of approximately 674,950 as of February 2026 according to the Government of Oman, of whom 526,496 hold work visas according to National Centre for Statistics and Information data.
Twenty-two Indian schools in Oman teach more than 48,000 students, and Indian social clubs in Muscat, Salalah, Sohar and Sur run linguistic wings for their members.
Oman is the only Gulf country with which all three of India's armed services hold joint exercises biennially: the navy exercise Naseem Al-Bahr, the air force exercise Eastern Bridge and the army exercise Al-Najah.
India has the highest number of defence memoranda of understanding with Oman of any country in West Asia, and the two sides meet in the Joint Military Cooperation Committee.
The India-Oman Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was signed during the Indian Prime Minister's visit of 17-18 December 2025 and entered into force on 1 June 2026; bilateral trade reached US$ 11.187 billion in FY 2025-26, with over 6,000 India-Oman joint ventures operating in Oman.