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Weekly Round-Up (23 - 29 September 2013)

  3 min 30 sec to read

  • The Nepal Rastra Bank issued a reverse repo last Wednesday for the fourth time worth Rs 10 billion, within a period of three weeks. Banking and financial institutions (BFIs) have bid for securities worth Rs 21.85 billion for the fourth round of reverse repo held by the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) last Wednesday. According to the NRB, it has received sealed quotations from 21 BFIs amounting to Rs 21.85 billion for the reverse repo issued by NRB worth Rs 10 billion. The over-subscription indicates that BFIs are sitting on a chunk of cash posing a high risk of liquidity-induced inflation rise during the festive seasons. The tightening credit demand, rise in the flow of remittance and lack of investment opportunities are the reasons behind excess liquidity, analysts believe.
 
  • The 34th World Tourism Day was celebrated in Nepal with a theme of “Tourism and Water: Protecting our Common Future” holding various programmes from September 21 to September 29. Two new tourist destinations were made public in a programme last Friday organised by Nepal Tourism Board (NTB).The new destinations are the 330 KM long Great Buddhist Trail stretching from Kathmandu to Banganga River, and Chitlang village of Makwanpur district as ´Village Tourism Destination 2013/14’.  During the programme, Tourism Secretary Sushil Ghimire informed that Gautam Buddha Airport at Bhairahawa will be developed as Nepal’s second international airport by June 2017.

 

  • While the Nepali economy is battling with huge trade deficits, Britian is likely to help Nepal in lowering such trade gaps. According to the British Ambassador to Nepal, Andrew James Sparks, he wants to help Nepal reduce its trade deficit, and will request his government to help Nepal in this regard. He has also made a commitment to help find a market for Nepali goods in Britain. Despite a two-century long relationship between the two countries, there has not been a single trade agreement between them. Speaking at a programme organised by Nepal Economic Forum in the capital last Tuesday, envoy Sparks informed that they will help create a market for Nepali goods with a ‘Made in Nepal’ brand.

 

  • Asian Development Bank, a major financial aid agency, is now shifting its investment to large scale projects from small level ones, stating it has faced many problems in small scale projects. As Nepal’s capital expenditure is only 3 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the ADB, which is formulating a 5-year Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), will also support increasing capital expenditure in Nepal. 
 
  • Nepal has received full membership of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). The recent meeting of the 36th General Assembly held in St Petersburg of Russia decided to grant the membership to Nepal which will come in effect from January 2014.  Finance Minister Shankar Prasad Koirala made public the ISO membership certificate at a programme organized at the Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology last Thursday. The membership is both a challenge and an opportunity for Nepal, according to economic analysts. Nepal will have to pay Rs 2.6 million annually to the ISO. Since this is a powerful trade tool, the status can boost the exports of Nepali goods as it can give out a positive message in the international market about the quality of Nepali goods.
 
  • As the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has arrested top four officials of the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) for doling out bonuses to its staff, the government has decided to provide a loan worth Rs 2 billion to the state-owned entity. Currently, the NOC owes the government and different financial institutions a whopping Rs 28.50 billion. The government has alone lent more than Rs 12.50 billion to the cash-strapped institution. The NOC had also hiked the price of petro products earlier in the week to adjust its price with international prices. While the NOC, state owned oil monopoly, is ridden with the economic crisis, economic analysts have said that the only solution lies in the idea of an auto-price mechanism.

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