April 7: The government has initiated homework to seek financial support of Rs 41 billion from donor agencies to check the spread of coronavirus in the country. The Ministry of Finance has started discussions with development partners like the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the support.

The government intends to seek the maximum support of Rs 24.22 billion from the World Bank followed by IMF (Rs 13.9 billion) and ADB (Rs 7.26 billion).

A highly-placed source at the finance ministry informed New Business Age that the government has so far initiated the process to avail financial support of Rs 41 billion. He further said that the donor agencies are positive to the government’s demand.

The government is all set to sign a deal for concessional loan of Rs 3.43 billion with the World Bank on Tuesday (today). This amount is being taken under the World Bank’s assistance during emergency and pandemic. The bank has already provided loan of Rs 6 billion under the natural disaster and health crisis mitigation head. The government will be utilizing this fund to upgrade its capacity to fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The source further said that the government is in talks with the ADB to avail Rs 7.26 billion at the moment. The government is also discussing mobilizing the fund allocated by the ADB for other projects in the current fiscal year in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The ADB had recently projected the economic growth of Nepal to slump as a result of lockdown, which has brought production and economic activities to a halt and also adversely affected the inflow of remittance.

The ADB in its recent report had said that growth will also be slower as a result of lower rice production, as well as lack of optimal production by cement, iron and brick industries among others.

Meanwhile, the government is preparing to take loan of Rs 13.9 billion from the IMF under its rapid credit facility at this hour of crisis.

The government is preparing to make the funds available within the next two months to tackle the rising threat of coronavirus in the country.

A meeting of the Council of Ministers on last Sunday (April 29) had decided to expedite talks with donor agencies to seek funds to prevent the spread of coronavirus and to tackle the problems created by the pandemic.

However, the government is yet to assess the impacts of coronavirus on the overall economy. Under secretary at the ministry Uttar Kumar Khatri informed New Business Age that the government is still studying the impacts.