August 28: In the fiscal year (FY) 2072/73, the net revenue from the export of services has dropped by 3.65 percent. As per the report published by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), during the period the total revenue from export of service had decreased by 7.2 percent while the total service expenditure had increased by 5.7 percent that resulted to high decline rate in income from the export of service.

In the last FY, income from service export was negatively affected because of the decrease in the income from tourism sector due to the last year's devastating earthquake, long political instability and undeclared border blockade.  Although, the net service revenue declined, the overall BOP surplus has increased by Rs 46 billion to Rs 100.91 billion. 

In the FY 2071/72, the net service income had increased by 19.4 percent to Rs 27.61 billion. However, in the last FY, it declined by around 50 percent to Rs 9.84 billion as per the Overall Economic and Financial Situation report of NRB. 

Although such revenue received from foreigners has decrease, expenses of Nepalis in the foreign tourism have increased by 6.1 percent. It has lead to the negative growth rate in the net revenue.  

The tourism revenue which was increased by 15.2 percent in the previous year has decreased by 21.8 percent in the last year. However, the report mentioned that the tourism expenditure has increased by 6.1 percent. Moreover, the expenditure on foreign education has increased by 18 percent in the last FY which had increased by 12.9 percent in the previous year. According to the NRB, the increased in outflow of service expenditure than the inflow of service revenue has caused the decline in the overall service export revenue of the country.

Another reason for the decrease in the service income is due to the decline in the remittance growth rate. As per the NRB, the growth rate of remittance has declined by 50 percent in the last FY. During the last FY, the growth rate of remittance was 7.77 percent which was 13.6 percent in the previous FY.