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For A Snow-ball Effect In Investment

  3 min 4 sec to read

Representatives of a dozen Danish companies visited Nepal last week seeking investment opportunities and business partners in the country. The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) even organised a business match-making event in Kathmandu which was attended by 50 Nepali companies. According to sources, the match-making event was very useful for the Danish companies to find suitable business partners in Nepal. Above everything, the event proved that Danish businessmen are really interested to invest in Nepal. This is a big vote of confidence to Nepal. Let’s hope this event will trigger a snowball effect for foreign investment in Nepal.
 
The situation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Nepal is not very encouraging. The country has received only Rs 18.9 billion FDI in the first seven months of the current fiscal year i.e. 2013/14 , Rs 19.94 billion in fiscal year 2012/13 and Rs 7.14 billion in the previous fiscal year. Against this backdrop, the initiative for business match-making taken by DANIDA is worth praising. It would be better if the international development agencies of other developed countries that are present in Nepal took their cue from DANIDA and organized similar match-making programmes in the future. Such efforts would be more fruitful than the annual grants they provide to Nepal.
 
 
Business match-making is a popular international practice today. Match-making events are very useful in gathering the right people (businessmen) at one platform to explore business and investment opportunities through interaction among them. Several summits and conferences related to business and investment are organized in the country annually. Such programmes could be used as a platform for business match-making with a little homework and pre-planning. There are exclusive match-making companies in Europe and other countries which want to attract FDI. These companies organize business match-making events on a regular basis.
 
There is huge prospect for such companies in Nepal. In Nepal, the match-making business could be a good business in itself. However, in the absence of exclusive match-making companies in the country, private sector umbrella organizations such as the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) should take the lead in business match making. After all, these umbrella organisations have been organizing a number of business summits and conferences every year for the past few years. The need is to use such summits and conferences as match-making events. If we can do this, genuine foreign investors will find genuine local partners to start new businesses or add strength to the existing ones.
 
The FNCCI in association with the government organized Nepal Economic Summit recently. In the Summit, FNCCI called on foreign investors to invest in 29 various projects. However, no foreign investor has come forward to invest in any of those projects so far. If this mega event were organised also as a match-making event, many foreign investors would have come and some of them might have shown interest in these projects. 
 
The government, given the sad situation of FDI in the country, should do everything at its disposal to attract FDI. There is no harm if the government goes out of the way to attract foreign investment. For example, if foreign investors demand full tax exemptions for a certain period of time, the government should agree to such demands without any hesitation. This will surely help attract foreign investment. Foreign investment will create employment opportunities in the country. It would more than compensate the loss incurred by the tax exemption as foreign investment would create employment opportunities in the country.  

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