Top floor of a brand new building, in the middle of a small office area, itself isolated from the rest of the capital, Muscat.
'Oman in Focus' - a meeting around the subjects of environmental preservation in the sultanate - deals at the end of November with underwater life.
The country has more than 3,000 kilometers of coastline, the seabed has been preserved there for a long time, between political will and low industrial activity.
Maisa Al Hooti is an Omani photographer behind the 'Oman in Focus' project.
© Harold Girard, France 24
"Oman in Focus raises awareness among the Omani people about the importance of preserving nature through photography, we always try to convey the image of beautiful nature, of a naturally rich country", explains Maisa Al Hooti, photographer submarine and project manager.
"If the country was not protected and clean, we would not have so many species still alive."
Fishing, pillar of the future for the sultanate?
This diversity of species makes the specificity of Oman and is honored in front of the guests, including several senior officials of the sultanate.
“We have covered, through this edition, 12 sites, sea and land, islands and the rare animals that we have here, such as humpback whales, green turtles and others”, details Maisa Al Hooti.
A strategy to "promote Oman at the level of international tourism", continues the head of the project.
"All of this fits with the Oman Vision 2040 plan."
But this plan put forward by the authorities could prove to be an environmental threat for still virgin areas.
Fishing, for example, is developing at full speed in Oman.
Between 2015 and 2020, fish production tripled, reaching a record level of 840,000 tonnes in one year.
The fishing port of Muscat in Oman.
© Harold Girard, France 24
The fishing sector is "one of the pillars of the transition on which the government is counting for national growth"
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stresses Hussein Ali, specialist in the fishing sector and in charge of government studies, who mentions the numerous investments for modernize infrastructure and improve financial support.
These investments have increased the fish market in Oman from a value of 395 million euros in 2015, to 837 million in 2020.
Can the sultanate envisage the same development as its neighbours?
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates have all begun to diversify their economy, the Sultanate of Oman wants to follow.
The energy transition could have been considered earlier, as oil reserves are smaller than many countries in the region.
“The clock is ticking fast,” warns David Rigoulet-Roze, associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris) and specialist in the Middle East.
"Diversification will be done by working the sectors one by one but not at the pace of other countries in the region, and certainly with more discretion", even though the plan whose first results are expected in 2040 seems difficult to achieve.
The researcher asserts that Oman's tribal context will be one of the government's greatest challenges for substantive economic reforms: "The new sultan has a strong economic culture and knows the changes needed to be implemented, but he may come up against different appreciations between the inhabitants of the coast, the desert and, for example, the governorate of Dhofar".
This region of Oman is historically home to a section of the population opposed to the power of the Sultan.
A situation inherited from the civil war, which opposed separatist rebels and government forces between 1964 and 1976.
Disengagement from hydrocarbons still a long way off
But the Oman vision 2040 plan does not mean that the country is turning its back on fossil fuels.
Fishing still represents only 1.2% of the country's economy, while Oman is almost 70% dependent on its oil and gas.
On December 21, TotalÉnergies announced the signing of an agreement with the government for the development of gas resources.
A contract signed with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, which includes a concession agreement on a gas block, will allow TotalÉnergies to produce 24,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023. In 2020, the French giant has already produced 39 000 barrels of oil per day.
The sultanate, despite its economic diversification plan, continues to develop the industry around hydrocarbons.
The authorities justify themselves by evoking the delay that the country has in several industrial fields compared to neighboring nations, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar or Saudi Arabia, which began their economic diversification earlier.
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