April 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has instructed the heads of Nepal’s missions abroad to take initiative to send as much remittances as possible from Nepali nationals living in foreign…
April 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has instructed the heads of Nepal’s missions abroad to take initiative to send as much remittances as possible from Nepali nationals living in foreign…
April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final…
April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance.…
April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to…
April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed…
April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all…
April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to…
April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on…
April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the…
April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online…
April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season.…
April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two…
April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central…
April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis.…
April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors…
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He also directed the diplomatic mission chiefs to take initiative to increase the visit of foreign tourists to Nepal. He gave such directives in a virtual meeting on Sunday afternoon with ambassadors, acting ambassadors, consul generals and heads of missions of more than two dozen countries.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Admitting that the government was under pressure to increase foreign exchange reserves and improve the balance of payments, Finance Minister Sharma said that all parties should work together during such crisis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are under pressure to increase our foreign exchange reserves. You have to play a crucial role in this matter. Encourage the citizens to send money as remittances. Create an environment for more tourists to come to Nepal through various tourism promotion programs,” said Minister Sharma.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stating that the inflow of remittance from mid-March to mid-April was Rs 91 billion, Minister Sharma said that there is a need to increase the inflow of remittances. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are bringing various packages to increase remittances. Homework has been done to give a certain percentage of reservation in IPO and FPO to those who send remittance through formal channels,” the minister furthers stated.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Minister Sharma also said that an investment conference should be organized to create an environment for increasing foreign investment in Nepal. \</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“We are creating a linear modality that allows borrowing only when a larger project is being built and the loan can be repaid by the project itself. We have also made it easy for non-resident Nepalis to open accounts in dollars,” he added. Minister Sharma also asked the envoys to give suggestions for the kinds of products in demand in various countries and if they can be produced in Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini said that the economy is under pressure and the government is taking measures to improve it gradually. Speaking on the occasion, Acting Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Neelam Dhungana pointed that the economy is under pressure and everyone needs to work together for improvement.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14825', 'image' => '20220411030432_1649626116.3 Mantri prf.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 15:03:53', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15082', 'article_category_id' => '273', 'title' => 'Preparations for ‘NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022’ in Final Phase ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the organizer – New Business Age Pvt Ltd, the summit and awards ceremony will be held in the capital on April 22.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The event is being organised with the objective of encouraging successful women entrepreneurs. The process of selecting the best women entrepreneurs from each province has been completed. Those selected will be given a certificate along with cash prize. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">An independent jury formed for the selection has already selected the women entrepreneurs to be awarded in various categories. Data of more than 2,000 women entrepreneurs from across the country have been collected for the selection process. The organiser informed that the award and honors will be provided in seven different categories. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In the run-up to the mega event, a group discussion among experts has already been held on the topic of ‘Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs after the Pandemic’. The organizer informed that the video of the discussion will be made public on the awards ceremony and further discussions will be held focusing on the issues raised during the discussion. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Under this event, there will be three interactive training programs in mid-April on business related topics for existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs across the country through hybrid medium. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Standard Chartered Bank is the title sponsor of the awards ceremony and Muktinath Bikas Bank is the co-sponsor. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, the medical partner for the event is Star Hospital. Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurship is the knowledge partner, Turkish Airlines is the airlines partner, Daraz is the ecommerce partner, NECO Insurance Limited is the insurance partner and Fiber Net is the internet partner. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, the event is also supported by Agriculture Development Bank, Sipradi Trading, Reliable Life Insurance, Progressive Finance Limited, National Life Insurance, Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (FWEAN), Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and Nepal Rastra Bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">New Business Age has been conducting various awards programs to help in the promotion of industry, business and entrepreneurship. A similar program to honor women entrepreneurs was held on January 31 last year. Last November, the startup entrepreneurs were also honored in the same way. </span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14824', 'image' => '20220411015407_1649625777.Clipboard08.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 13:53:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15081', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Former Finance Ministers Draw Government's Attention to Economic Crisis ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Former Finance Ministers Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Surendra Pandey and Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada drew the attention of the government by organizing a press conference on Sunday (April 10). On the occasion, they urged the government not to allow the country's economy to deteriorate. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">In a statement distributed to the media on the occasion, they stated that the external sector is facing crisis. Stating that imports have increased uncontrollably in the current fiscal year and reached around Rs 1500 billion in eight months, the former finance ministers warned that imports will reach Rs 2200 billion if the present situation continues.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The former finance ministers opined that the growing import has not contributed to production except leading to increased consumption. In this backdrop, they urged the government to think about the economic health of the country before it is too late. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Noting that trade deficit has increased at present, the former finance ministers projected it to exceed Rs 2000 billion by the close of the current fiscal year if the present situation continues. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">They also objected to the government's decision to suspend Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14823', 'image' => '20220411110007_pro_ktm_umla.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:59:27', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15080', 'article_category_id' => '219', 'title' => 'Commercial Banks Agree not to Increase Interest Rates', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The maximum interest on deposits for the review period will be 11.03 percent, as per the understanding reached between the CEOs of all commercial banks.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">A meeting of Nepal Bankers’ Association, an umbrella body of commercial banks, on Sunday took a decision to this effect. The banks did not increase interest rates in the month of Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April) as deposit collection did not improve even after increasing the interest rates.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">As per the provision of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), commercial banks need to make public the interest rates every month. Stating that the commercial banks were involved in unhealthy competition of increasing the interest rates, the central bank had made arrangements that allowed the banks to increase the interest rate by only 10 percent compared to the previous month.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The commercial banks had increased the interest rate in the month of Falgun (mid-February to mid-March) within the same criteria fixed by the NRB.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14822', 'image' => '20220411104228_Banks - Copy.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:41:46', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15079', 'article_category_id' => '218', 'title' => 'NBA Decides not to Issue LCs for importing Luxurious Goods', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones. The association's meeting on Sunday took a decision to this effect. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The banks have agreed not to open LCs to import luxurious goods like vehicles, gold, silver as well as sugar, chewing gum, dry foods, furniture, cigarettes, alcohol, perfume and mobile phones among others.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">According to chief executive officer of the Nepal Bank Limited, Krishna Bahadur Adhikari, who is also a member of NBA's executive committee, the commercial banks took such decision following a directive from the Nepal Rastra Bank. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Earlier, the central bank in a bid to stop the outflow of the country's depleting foreign exchange reserves had imposed 50 to 100 percent cash margin on the imports of 47 different goods. Likewise, the central bank had recently summoned the CEOs of all 27 commercial banks and unofficially directed them to halt LC to import luxurious goods including vehicles. </span><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> -- RSS </span><br /> </span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14821', 'image' => '20220411081524_LC.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 08:14:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15078', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Begins Baseless Investigation against NRB Governor', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government has launched an investigation without any credible basis into the alleged role of leaking vital information by Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari, who was attempting to revive the crisis-ridden economy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A cabinet meeting on Thursday formed a probe committee headed by former justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee includes Surya Thapa and Dr Chandrakant Poudyal as members.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">With the formation of the committee, the governor's rights have been automatically suspended. The central bank is currently headed by Officiating Governor Dr Neelam Dhungana.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">There is a provision in the Nepal Rastra Bank Act-2058 BS that allows the government to take action against the governor for the breach of 6 different points.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government can fire the NRB governor, upon the recommendation of the probe committee, if he is disqualified for being a bank operator as well as lack of ability to work as per the bank’s objective, causing damage to banking and financial system, disqualification of license to operate business due to misconduct, or if found to be untrustworthy and for skipping the board meeting for three times without any credible grounds.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the government has started the investigation process without providing any credible basis for the probe. Experts have pointed out that the probe into the governor when the state of the economy is deteriorating has sent the wrong message to the public. They see it as an interference with the NRB's autonomy. Although it is common to have differences between the central bank and the finance minister, suspending the governor in the current situation has sent the wrong message, says Chiranjeevi Nepal, a former governor himself. Such differences occur elsewhere.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"As the government is the super regulator, it can also investigate the regulatory body," says the former governor of Nepal, adding, “But the decision to investigate the role of the governor during such crisis has cast down the morale of the society.”</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Since the objectives of the central bank and the government contradict with each other in some points, the differences between the finance minister and the governor should be taken as normal, says Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">According to him, the Finance Ministry aims to spend as much money as possible to achieve economic growth but the central bank has to control the spending to avoid inflation and also needs to keep the foreign exchange reserves in balance.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">He added that the government had interfered in the central bank’s autonomy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Another former governor, Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri, also admits that the Ministry of Finance has started interfering in the banking system. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari, who joined NRB as an assistant officer, retired as a deputy governor. He became the governor upon the recommendation of the then Finance Minister Yuvaraj Khatiwada around two years ago.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari has been praised for bringing the monetary policy to revive the Covid-affected economy soon after he became governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the conflict erupted after Finance Minister Janardan Sharma instructed the central bank to postpone the issuance of monetary policy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Recently, there was a dispute between the finance minister and the governor over the banks’ interest rate. The Finance Minister was infuriated with the governor after the finance minister’s instruction to release illegal properties came out in the media. It resulted in the suspension of the governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14820', 'image' => '20220410095006_fin min sharma.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 21:49:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15077', 'article_category_id' => '268', 'title' => 'A Tale of Success: Nepali Beekeeper Exporting Honey to Japan and China', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Prashant Khadka</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan. Her products 'TBS Pure Honey' and 'KASTI Himalayan Honey' are now exported to Japan, China and other countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">About 10 percent of the 12 tons of honey Shrestha produces annually at her company named ‘Beekeeping Shop’ is exported to Japan and China. Nepali honey is in good demand even in European countries as the product is considered better in quality as compared to foreign products. However, she says that the European Union (EU) did not include Nepal in the list of third countries for importing honey, because of its flaw in implementing the National Residue Monitoring Plan (NRMP). That is the reason Shrestha says she could not export her honey to European countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha’s company is producing honey by rearing bees in 80 hives in Chitwan and Dang. Besides, the company is working with beekeepers of Kailali, Pyuthan, Dang, Bardiya and other districts to check the quality and send it to the market with branding. Honey is sold in Nepal from her own Beekeeping Shop, online shop Daraz and Salesberry department store. Shrestha said that her Beekeeping Shop itself is looking after the foreign exports.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha said that organic honey in her company is made by bees that suck the flowers of plants like Indian butter tree, mustard, lychee and buckwheat. The price of honey of both the brands ranges from Rs 900 to Rs 1,200 per kg depending on the quality. Shrestha said, “I started my business with a small investment of around Rs 100,000. I continued to work hard even though the income was not good. But gradually, customers started frequenting after tasting the honey and the market size increased along with the profit as well.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha expressed that the practice of eating honey in urban areas of Nepal was not developed when she planned to open the Beekeeping Shop. She said, “My research shows that few people used to buy and eat foreign brands of honey.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A student of botany, she was conducting research on the quality of Nepali honey and modern beekeeping in the SNV project run with the help of the Dutch government at that time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She said that she started working about 27 years ago after seeing good potential of commercial beekeeping in Nepal following the same research. At present, 35 people including 30 beekeepers and 5 workers are employed in the business. She estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of the total beekeeping potential has been achieved in Nepal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha recalled, “When I started the Beekeeping Shop at Man Bhawan in Lalitpur, my family, friends and relatives tried to discourage me saying that it didn’t suit me doing such work, being a bachelor's degree holder in botany. But I did not give up. I didn't start this job because I couldn't get a job. I chose to do this work of my free will and continued to work hard in the same direction, while ensuring the quality of the product, and it made me a successful woman entrepreneur today.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14819', 'image' => '20220410070241_tbs-kasti-2_orig.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 19:01:54', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 7 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15076', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Supply Chain of Chemical Fertilizer Likely to Further Worsen', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The four companies, Silk Market Pvt Ltd, Zen Trade, JS Trade Company and Indian Potash Limited, had signed separate contracts with the state-owned Agriculture Inputs Company Limited and the Salt Trading Corporation for the import of chemical fertilizers. But they failed to import the fertilizers even after the deadline of the contract period.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Ashok Kumar Khadka, information officer of the Agriculture Inputs Company says that there is only a slim possibility for the companies to bring fertilizer on time. He said, “If this situation continues, the chances of fertilizer coming are low in future as well.” He stated that the failure of the companies to import fertilizer was due to the Covid-19 pandemic and China's new export policy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Farmers are continuously facing the problem of not getting chemical fertilizer every year during the farming season. There are indications that the circumstances will repeat this year as well.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Kumar Rajbhandari, spokesperson of the Salt Trading Corporation, Indian Potash Limited had signed a contract with the corporation last December for importing 25,000 metric tons of DAP and 75,000 tons of urea. It is a state-owned company of India. It supplied only 25,000 tons of DAP within the deadline. As for the remaining 75,000 tons of urea, it is yet to be decided whether the company is going to deliver the consignment or not.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The other three companies that signed contracts with the Agriculture Inputs Company have not been able to import chemical fertilizers even a month after their contract expired. A Nepali company called Silk Market had signed an agreement with Agriculture Inputs Company to import 60,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP, but the deadline has already expired. Similarly, Jane Trade had entered into two separate agreements with Agriculture Inputs Company for importing 25,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP. Another company, JS Trade, had agreed to import 25,000 tons of DAP with the Agriculture Inputs Company. The period for all these contracts have already expired, but, there are no signs for the import of chemical fertilizers.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Information Officer Khadka of the Agriculture Inputs Company, despite the expiration of the deadline for importing the chemical fertilizers, none of the companies have said they are not able to supply the fertilizers. He said that they are confident that they will bring the fertilizers soon. At present, the Agriculture Inputs Company has a stock of 500 tons of urea, 20,000 tons of DAP and 7,500 tons of potassium. Meanwhile, the Salt Trading Corporation has no fertilizers in reserve.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Spokesperson for Salt Trading, Rajbhandari said that due to the ongoing fluctuations in the global market, there may be shortage of chemical fertilizers in the coming days. He estimates that the problem may be due to the continuous rise in the price of fertilizers in the world market. According to Rajbhandari, the price of chemical fertilizer has gone up from 455 USD per ton to 1100 USD per ton.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14818', 'image' => '20220410050258_Fertilizer.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 17:02:22', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => null, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 8 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15075', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Suspension of Central Bank’s Governor has Weakened NRB during Crisis: Experts ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy. The central bank is the institution that can get the troubled economy back on track. The monetary policy brought by the central bank every year has a great impact on the stability and progress of the national economy. The financial sector and the economy are closely linked. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Due to various reasons, the country's economy has entered a critical situation. The economy, which was recovering from the effects of coronavirus, has been hit by liquidity crisis, inflation, energy shortage and declining foreign exchange reserves. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The governor of the central bank advises the government on policy interventions to prevent the economic crisis from deepening and to bail out the troubled economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In this sense, the country’s economy needs a governor at all times. Meanwhile, the government seems to have weakened the NRB by suspending Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari during such critical time. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Experts say that this will affect the main task of revitalizing the economy. They are of the view that the government has made a blunder by suspending the governor. They noted that the suspension of the governor was not appropriate, even during normal circumstances. There is no concrete reason to suspend the governor, they say. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The dispute between Finance Minister Janardan Sharma and Governor Adhikari could have been resolved through discussions. Experts say that there is weaknesses on both sides. Even though it could be resolved through discussions, they say that the situation was complicated by political bias. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A cabinet meeting held on Thursday has formed a committee to investigate various allegations against Governor Adhikari due to which he has been automatically suspended. The government made the decision public on Friday, prompting reactions from different perspectives. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Former finance secretary and economist Rameshwar Khanal says that the government has tried to weaken the NRB when the economy was in crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The economy has been in a critical situation since last July. Since then, NRB has been working on various issues for its improvement. In particular, NRB tightened imports to curb declining foreign exchange reserves. Apart from this, the regulatory body has also made various other policy arrangements in the meantime. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Despite this, the economy has entered a phase of crisis. In such a situation, NRB’s role is even more crucial. The central bank may have to make important decisions at any time. However, economist Khanal says that the government’s decision has closed the door for the central bank to take vital decisions. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"The government has suspended governor Adhikari and assigned deputy governor Neelam Dhungana as officiating governor,” said Khanal, “However, the acting governor's jurisdiction may be limited. No bold decisions can be made. Also, there is no guarantee that the officiating governor’s orders will be carried out. Thus, the NRB is weakened in terms of policy when the economy is in crisis.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He added that the government's move would have a negative impact on the overall economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Since there is no chief executive officer at the central bank, it will create a negative impact. Financial services could be affected,” he said, adding, “At the same time, we can lose our reputation in the international arena if there are shortcomings in foreign exchange trading.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of Nabil Bank Upendra Poudel said that there was no good coordination between the Ministry of Finance and NRB during the crisis. “I don't want to comment on what happened,” he said, “However, the economy is in crisis right now. At this time, everyone should coordinate with each other. Nevertheless, there is a lack of coordination between the two government bodies.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Bhuvan Dahal, former president of the Nepal Bankers' Association, it is wrong to suspend Governor Adhikari. He says this has really weakened NRB. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “The government's move to weaken the NRB will have a negative impact on the economy and the financial sector. The current situation is not normal as before, the economy is in crisis. There are also problems in the banking sector including the liquidity crisis. At this point, the suspension of the governor could have unpleasant consequences,” said Dahal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He said that the entire banking and financial sector is concerned over the incident. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“The banks have a history of CEOs facing injustice on issues related to credit flow and recovery. Now the governor of NRB has been treated unfairly,” he said. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“It is normal to have difference of opinion between the finance ministry and the central bank. This also happens abroad but not to this level. The issue should have been resolved through discussion. However, the government has done injustice by suspending an honest governor,” he added. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, president of Nepal Financial Institutions Association, Saroj Kaji Tuladhar said that the incident will have a psychological impact on the financial sector. He said that, in particular, it will affect financial stability. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of the Microfinance Bankers Association, Prakash Raj Sharma, said that the development of the financial sector and services would be affected due to this incident. Stating that it will also have an impact on the recovery of the troubled economy, he said that the financial sector would not support this decision of the government under any circumstances. </span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14817', 'image' => '20220410035208_NRBnew.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 15:51:30', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 9 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15074', 'article_category_id' => '275', 'title' => 'Foreign Employment Office to Issue Institutional Labour Permits through Online System', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Ramesh Aryal, chief of the Tahachal-based Foreign Employment Office, informed that such permits will be issued only through online system from April 15 onwards. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been providing services for renewal of labour permits as well as issuing institutional and personal labour permits. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Institutional labour permits are issued to aspiring migrant workers through manpower companies or their representatives. From now on, the manpower companies do not need to send their representatives personally to the Foreign Employment Office to acquire permits.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been renewing labour permits through online system since the last two months. More than 1000 service seekers have been benefitting from this new provision each day ever since the online system was launched. They have been able to renew their labour permits without visiting the office in person. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has started online service for issuing labour permits to make the process faceless, paperless and cashless.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Labour Minister Krishna Kumar Shrestha informed that the ministry has initiated online process for issuing labour permits to facilitate the aspiring migrant workers.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14816', 'image' => '20220410020648_20211215023334_20200315123851_1111.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 14:06:07', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 10 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15073', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Pathway to Camp II of Everest Opened ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. A team of icefall doctors, tasked with building the pathway to the world's highest peak, Mt Everest, has cleared the route from the base camp to the Camp II. According to the Mount Everest Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), six icefall doctors are currently working on installing signals, stairs, and ropes. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The climbers have now already left for Camp II after the pathway was cleared by the icefall doctors, said SPCC vice-president Lama Kaji Sherpa. In order to acclimatize, the climbers have to go from the base camp to the camp II and return. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Sherpa said that 15 stairs have been used from the base camp to the Camp II this time. Earlier, 32 were used in 2018, but only 20 in 2019 BS. The pathway to Camp II is also used to climb Lhotse and Nuptse mountains. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">With the onset of the tourist season, the number of foreign tourists visiting Khumbu in the Everest region has increased. Khum Prasad Poudal, an employee of the Lukla branch of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said that the flights to the Tenzing Hillary Airport in Lukla have increased. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> Up to 45 flights by helicopters and 35 flights by different airlines is taking place daily in Lukla these days. He said that as many as 266 tourists arrive in Khumbu by 14 aircraft and 225 tourists via 45 helicopter on Friday. -- RSS </span></span></span><br /> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14815', 'image' => '20220410115017_Camp2_01.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 11:49:35', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 11 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15072', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Tourism in Nepal Returning back to Normalcy ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => ' April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">This spring season witnessed considerable number of foreign tourists arriving in Nepal. A total of 42,006 tourists arrived here from air route in March alone. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Last year, during the same period, 14,977 foreign tourists had visited Nepal. According to the statistics of the Department of Tourism, Nepal has welcomed 78,747 foreign tourists since January this year till March end. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The government has formed a Tourism Revival Steering Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation which is mandated to undertake initiatives for the revival of the tourism industry by exploring new possibilities, identifying new avenues, promoting the tourism industry and creating enabling investment environment in the tourism sector among others. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Towards this end, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has been organizing Travel Marts in all seven provinces. </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The Fewa Festival is going to be held from April 13-14. A team of foreign chefs led by Master Chef UK contest winner Santosh Shah will reach various destinations for 10 days and participate in promotional events with special focus on culinary tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Mahesh Phuyal, general-manager of Ramada Encore, a 4-star hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu said that Ramada had 70 per cent occupancy of late. Mostly, American, India and European tourists book the 90-room hotel, shared Phuyal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The inflow of foreign tourists has excited tourism entrepreneurs in Pokhara, one of the popular tourist destinations in the country. Bharatra Parajuli, a local entrepreneur, said that the tourism entrepreneurs like him were upbeat due to increasing number of tourism activities in Pokhara. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He said that development and promotion of adventurous tourism destinations in and around Pokhara, famed for lakes and natural landscapes, has helped boost the country's tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Similarly, Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN)'s Acting President Binayak Shah shared that the hotels in Pokhara were receiving many inquiries lately. He opined that tourism was gradually reviving in Nepal after two years of pandemic-induced crisis. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Likewise, Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN)'s former vice-president Nilhari Bastola suggested that in order to revive tourism in Nepal, the government of Nepal needs to spread the message that Nepal is ready and open for tourist and this could be done through foreign ambassadors and consuls stationed in Nepal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He further recommended the government to devise attractive packages such as free visa for a month among others to bolster the influx of foreign tourists. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">NTB's CEO Dr Dhananjay Regmi informed that the number of tourists from India and Bangladesh had increased significantly as the board had conducted targeted promotional events in these countries. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Echoing with Shah, Regmi said that tourism in Nepal which was plagued by COVID-19 was slowly clawing back to normalcy. He called for the need to facilitate Indian tourists arriving in Nepal via road ways through various border points. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14814', 'image' => '20220410081846_himalaya-trekkers.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 08:17:31', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 12 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15071', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Suspends NRB Governor Adhikari', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">After repeated calls for bailing out the economy from crisis, the Ministry of Finance on Friday handed over the suspension letter to Governor Adhikari.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The ministry has assigned the responsibility of Officiating Governor to Deputy Governor Neelam Dhungana. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Thursday (April 7) had decided to investigative into the alleged role of Governor Adhikari in leaking sensitive information of NRB. The Cabinet meeting has formed a committee under the coordination of former Supreme Court Justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee has been asked to submit its report within a month.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A source at the finance ministry said that Governor Adhikari was suspended so that he would not be able to destroy evidences. If he emerges clean after the investigation, Adhikari will reassume his duties as NRB governor. However, if he is found guilty the prospect of Adhikari returning back to the top job will effectively come to an end.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari was appointed as the governor of NRB by the then government led by KP Sharma Oli. He was praised for adopting a private sector-friendly policy to uplift the economy battered by Covid-19. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, after the formation of the new government, it was revealed that he did not enjoy good relation with incumbent Finance Minister Janardan Sharma. Both Sharma and Adhikari had publicly denied their relation had soured.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">During a programme on Friday, Finance Minister Sharma had accused Adhikari, without mentioning his name, of being involved in leaking vital information to the media.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">While Finance Minister dismissed rumors that the country’s economy was in crisis as mentioned in the media, Governor Adhikari maintained that the country was following the footsteps of Sri Lanka.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-09', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14813', 'image' => '20220409103209_1649428919.governer (1).jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-09 10:31:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 13 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15070', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Nepal’s Economy Heading Towards Red Zone: Expert', 'sub_title' => 'Experts say Delayed Action of Government caused Current Economic Crisis', 'summary' => 'April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Milan Bishwakarma</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. The situation has worsened when the economy battered by the impact of Covid-19 for 2 years was gradually clawing back to normalcy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The economy has been pushed to the brink due to various factors including liquidity crunch in the banking system, inflation, energy scarcity, declining foreign exchange reserves among others.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">There were ominous signs since the beginning of the current fiscal year that the economy would undergo stress. The Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation Report published by Nepal Rastra Bank every month had indicated that the economy was on the verge of crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Balance of Payments (BoP) was in deficit while the foreign exchange reserves were declining since mid-July. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Besides, trade deficit was increasing and remittance inflow was declining. Banks were struggling to manage investible capital since the start of the current fiscal year. Experts say that the economy is already in crisis because the concerned authorities did not take proper measures to address those problems in time. They argue that the economy has been further troubled by the energy crisis and hike in fuel prices of late. They suggested that the government must take measures to ensure that the foreign exchange reserves get replenished. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Foreign exchange reserves are vital indicator of the economy. The economic situation depends on the volume of foreign exchange reserves. Foreign currency is needed for importing goods and services. It is not possible to import goods and services in lack of foreign exchange reserves. Lately, the economy is in crisis mainly because of the decline in foreign exchange reserves.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Economist Dr Chandra Mani Adhikari suggests that the government must take immediate steps to effectively mobilize the foreign exchange reserves to resolve the current crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The main crisis faced by the economy at present is the declining foreign exchange reserves,” says Adhikari, adding, “It affects the overall economy. But the government has done nothing to attract foreign currency but has only kept a stock of the currency.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He suggested the government adopt a policy to attract foreign investment and promote exports and tourism as well as encourage remittance inflow that in turn will earn foreign currency.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">According to Adhikari, the government must immediately announce a promotional package to bring the remittance into the country through formal channels.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Remittance is a good source of earning foreign currency. However, inflow of remittance has declined in recent period. It is said that the remittance is sent through informal channels. Therefore, the government must encourage to bring remittance through formal channels,” he added.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He is of the view that foreign currency can be earned if the expenditure of the projects run with foreign aid is increased.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Nepal’s economy was in grey zone but it has already entered the yellow zone now and will drift towards the red zone if immediate measures are not taken,” said Adhikari.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Stakeholders of the private sector have expressed their willingness to help resolve the current crisis. They say that they are ready to seek a solution in collaboration with the government.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">President of the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) Shekhar Golchha says that the private sector is ready to go for any extent to help the government resolve this crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“This is the time of crisis. We won’t consider profit and loss during such times. We are ready to rise above our business and cooperate with the government,” said Golchha, adding, “But the government must take the private sector in confidence, which is yet to happen.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the government has held discussion with the private sector in this regard but hasn’t taken any policy-level decision.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the latest move of the government is not helpful in solving the crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The government has not taken adequate measures to resolve the problem. It has just warded off immediate crisis. It is necessary to involve the private sector to seek a solution to the problem,” added Golchha.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He said that problems have surfaced due to the measures taken by the government to discourage imports all of a sudden.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“It was necessary to take such steps considering the current situation. But it has created additional problems. It is time to rethink if this is a long-term solution or not.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14812', 'image' => '20220408055208_economic crisis.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 17:51:11', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 14 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15069', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Government Preparing to Monitor Cooperatives by Hiring CAs and RAs', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs). As the financial risk of cooperatives is increasing, the federal government is preparing to tighten the monitoring of cooperatives by hiring more manpower under contract basis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Rudra Prasad Pandit, registrar of the Department of Cooperatives said, “The department does not have efficient and sufficient manpower to monitor the cooperatives. We will tighten the monitoring even by hiring CAs and RAs on a contract basis.” Pandit further said that action would be taken based on the issues surfacing after monitoring.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Although the posts of CA and data analyst have been arranged within the department for monitoring cooperatives, the posts have not been filled yet. Therefore, the department has put forward a plan to get CAs and RAs to work on contract basis. The department informed that a budget for this plan has been demanded from the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation. If the budget is not provided, then the department will manage it from internal resources.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the provisions of the constitution, the rights from registration to regulation of cooperatives have reached to the local level. On the basis of the scope of work of the organization, all three levels of governments can regulate the registration of cooperatives. However, the cooperatives have not been regulated due to lack of sufficient manpower at the state and local levels.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">There is a provision that the federal government can also monitor the cooperatives dealing with transactions more than Rs 500 million. Accordingly, the big cooperatives will be monitored regularly in collaboration with the state and local governments, said Registrar Pandit. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Out of 29,886 cooperatives across the country, only 125 are under the federal government. Similarly, there are 6002 under the state government and 23759 under the local government.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Cooperatives come second in terms of financial transaction after commercial banks. Currently, cooperatives across the country have mobilized more than Rs 1 trillion. Due to the lack of effective regulation by the government, some cooperatives have been mobilizing the money of the general savers indiscriminately. Institutions have become problematic when such operators embezzle money. From Oriental to civil cooperatives, more than 100 of them have been in trouble and billions of public deposits have not been returned.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-27', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14811', 'image' => '20220408041436_DepartmentofCooperative__20200922125726.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 16:13:52', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = falseinclude - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
Warning (2): simplexml_load_file() [<a href='http://php.net/function.simplexml-load-file'>function.simplexml-load-file</a>]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "" [APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60]file not found!Code Context// $file = 'http://aabhiyan:QUVLg8Wzs2F7G9N7@nepalstock.com.np/api/indexdata.xml';if(!$xml = simplexml_load_file($file)){$viewFile = '/var/www/html/newbusinessage.com/app/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp' $dataForView = array( 'articles' => array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 7 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 8 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 9 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 10 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 11 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 12 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 13 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 14 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ) ), 'current_user' => null, 'logged_in' => false ) $articles = array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15083', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Finance Minister Tells Nepali Ambassadors to Help in Tourism Promotion', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has instructed the heads of Nepal’s missions abroad to take initiative to send as much remittances as possible from Nepali nationals living in foreign countries.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has instructed the heads of Nepal’s missions abroad to take initiative to send as much remittances as possible from Nepali nationals living in foreign countries. He also directed the diplomatic mission chiefs to take initiative to increase the visit of foreign tourists to Nepal. He gave such directives in a virtual meeting on Sunday afternoon with ambassadors, acting ambassadors, consul generals and heads of missions of more than two dozen countries.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Admitting that the government was under pressure to increase foreign exchange reserves and improve the balance of payments, Finance Minister Sharma said that all parties should work together during such crisis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are under pressure to increase our foreign exchange reserves. You have to play a crucial role in this matter. Encourage the citizens to send money as remittances. Create an environment for more tourists to come to Nepal through various tourism promotion programs,” said Minister Sharma.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stating that the inflow of remittance from mid-March to mid-April was Rs 91 billion, Minister Sharma said that there is a need to increase the inflow of remittances. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are bringing various packages to increase remittances. Homework has been done to give a certain percentage of reservation in IPO and FPO to those who send remittance through formal channels,” the minister furthers stated.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Minister Sharma also said that an investment conference should be organized to create an environment for increasing foreign investment in Nepal. \</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“We are creating a linear modality that allows borrowing only when a larger project is being built and the loan can be repaid by the project itself. We have also made it easy for non-resident Nepalis to open accounts in dollars,” he added. Minister Sharma also asked the envoys to give suggestions for the kinds of products in demand in various countries and if they can be produced in Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini said that the economy is under pressure and the government is taking measures to improve it gradually. Speaking on the occasion, Acting Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Neelam Dhungana pointed that the economy is under pressure and everyone needs to work together for improvement.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14825', 'image' => '20220411030432_1649626116.3 Mantri prf.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 15:03:53', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15082', 'article_category_id' => '273', 'title' => 'Preparations for ‘NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022’ in Final Phase ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the organizer – New Business Age Pvt Ltd, the summit and awards ceremony will be held in the capital on April 22.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The event is being organised with the objective of encouraging successful women entrepreneurs. The process of selecting the best women entrepreneurs from each province has been completed. Those selected will be given a certificate along with cash prize. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">An independent jury formed for the selection has already selected the women entrepreneurs to be awarded in various categories. Data of more than 2,000 women entrepreneurs from across the country have been collected for the selection process. The organiser informed that the award and honors will be provided in seven different categories. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In the run-up to the mega event, a group discussion among experts has already been held on the topic of ‘Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs after the Pandemic’. The organizer informed that the video of the discussion will be made public on the awards ceremony and further discussions will be held focusing on the issues raised during the discussion. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Under this event, there will be three interactive training programs in mid-April on business related topics for existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs across the country through hybrid medium. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Standard Chartered Bank is the title sponsor of the awards ceremony and Muktinath Bikas Bank is the co-sponsor. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, the medical partner for the event is Star Hospital. Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurship is the knowledge partner, Turkish Airlines is the airlines partner, Daraz is the ecommerce partner, NECO Insurance Limited is the insurance partner and Fiber Net is the internet partner. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, the event is also supported by Agriculture Development Bank, Sipradi Trading, Reliable Life Insurance, Progressive Finance Limited, National Life Insurance, Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (FWEAN), Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and Nepal Rastra Bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">New Business Age has been conducting various awards programs to help in the promotion of industry, business and entrepreneurship. A similar program to honor women entrepreneurs was held on January 31 last year. Last November, the startup entrepreneurs were also honored in the same way. </span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14824', 'image' => '20220411015407_1649625777.Clipboard08.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 13:53:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15081', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Former Finance Ministers Draw Government's Attention to Economic Crisis ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Former Finance Ministers Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Surendra Pandey and Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada drew the attention of the government by organizing a press conference on Sunday (April 10). On the occasion, they urged the government not to allow the country's economy to deteriorate. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">In a statement distributed to the media on the occasion, they stated that the external sector is facing crisis. Stating that imports have increased uncontrollably in the current fiscal year and reached around Rs 1500 billion in eight months, the former finance ministers warned that imports will reach Rs 2200 billion if the present situation continues.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The former finance ministers opined that the growing import has not contributed to production except leading to increased consumption. In this backdrop, they urged the government to think about the economic health of the country before it is too late. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Noting that trade deficit has increased at present, the former finance ministers projected it to exceed Rs 2000 billion by the close of the current fiscal year if the present situation continues. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">They also objected to the government's decision to suspend Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14823', 'image' => '20220411110007_pro_ktm_umla.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:59:27', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15080', 'article_category_id' => '219', 'title' => 'Commercial Banks Agree not to Increase Interest Rates', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The maximum interest on deposits for the review period will be 11.03 percent, as per the understanding reached between the CEOs of all commercial banks.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">A meeting of Nepal Bankers’ Association, an umbrella body of commercial banks, on Sunday took a decision to this effect. The banks did not increase interest rates in the month of Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April) as deposit collection did not improve even after increasing the interest rates.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">As per the provision of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), commercial banks need to make public the interest rates every month. Stating that the commercial banks were involved in unhealthy competition of increasing the interest rates, the central bank had made arrangements that allowed the banks to increase the interest rate by only 10 percent compared to the previous month.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The commercial banks had increased the interest rate in the month of Falgun (mid-February to mid-March) within the same criteria fixed by the NRB.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14822', 'image' => '20220411104228_Banks - Copy.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:41:46', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15079', 'article_category_id' => '218', 'title' => 'NBA Decides not to Issue LCs for importing Luxurious Goods', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones. The association's meeting on Sunday took a decision to this effect. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The banks have agreed not to open LCs to import luxurious goods like vehicles, gold, silver as well as sugar, chewing gum, dry foods, furniture, cigarettes, alcohol, perfume and mobile phones among others.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">According to chief executive officer of the Nepal Bank Limited, Krishna Bahadur Adhikari, who is also a member of NBA's executive committee, the commercial banks took such decision following a directive from the Nepal Rastra Bank. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Earlier, the central bank in a bid to stop the outflow of the country's depleting foreign exchange reserves had imposed 50 to 100 percent cash margin on the imports of 47 different goods. Likewise, the central bank had recently summoned the CEOs of all 27 commercial banks and unofficially directed them to halt LC to import luxurious goods including vehicles. </span><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> -- RSS </span><br /> </span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14821', 'image' => '20220411081524_LC.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 08:14:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15078', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Begins Baseless Investigation against NRB Governor', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government has launched an investigation without any credible basis into the alleged role of leaking vital information by Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari, who was attempting to revive the crisis-ridden economy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A cabinet meeting on Thursday formed a probe committee headed by former justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee includes Surya Thapa and Dr Chandrakant Poudyal as members.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">With the formation of the committee, the governor's rights have been automatically suspended. The central bank is currently headed by Officiating Governor Dr Neelam Dhungana.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">There is a provision in the Nepal Rastra Bank Act-2058 BS that allows the government to take action against the governor for the breach of 6 different points.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government can fire the NRB governor, upon the recommendation of the probe committee, if he is disqualified for being a bank operator as well as lack of ability to work as per the bank’s objective, causing damage to banking and financial system, disqualification of license to operate business due to misconduct, or if found to be untrustworthy and for skipping the board meeting for three times without any credible grounds.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the government has started the investigation process without providing any credible basis for the probe. Experts have pointed out that the probe into the governor when the state of the economy is deteriorating has sent the wrong message to the public. They see it as an interference with the NRB's autonomy. Although it is common to have differences between the central bank and the finance minister, suspending the governor in the current situation has sent the wrong message, says Chiranjeevi Nepal, a former governor himself. Such differences occur elsewhere.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"As the government is the super regulator, it can also investigate the regulatory body," says the former governor of Nepal, adding, “But the decision to investigate the role of the governor during such crisis has cast down the morale of the society.”</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Since the objectives of the central bank and the government contradict with each other in some points, the differences between the finance minister and the governor should be taken as normal, says Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">According to him, the Finance Ministry aims to spend as much money as possible to achieve economic growth but the central bank has to control the spending to avoid inflation and also needs to keep the foreign exchange reserves in balance.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">He added that the government had interfered in the central bank’s autonomy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Another former governor, Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri, also admits that the Ministry of Finance has started interfering in the banking system. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari, who joined NRB as an assistant officer, retired as a deputy governor. He became the governor upon the recommendation of the then Finance Minister Yuvaraj Khatiwada around two years ago.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari has been praised for bringing the monetary policy to revive the Covid-affected economy soon after he became governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the conflict erupted after Finance Minister Janardan Sharma instructed the central bank to postpone the issuance of monetary policy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Recently, there was a dispute between the finance minister and the governor over the banks’ interest rate. The Finance Minister was infuriated with the governor after the finance minister’s instruction to release illegal properties came out in the media. It resulted in the suspension of the governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14820', 'image' => '20220410095006_fin min sharma.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 21:49:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15077', 'article_category_id' => '268', 'title' => 'A Tale of Success: Nepali Beekeeper Exporting Honey to Japan and China', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Prashant Khadka</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan. Her products 'TBS Pure Honey' and 'KASTI Himalayan Honey' are now exported to Japan, China and other countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">About 10 percent of the 12 tons of honey Shrestha produces annually at her company named ‘Beekeeping Shop’ is exported to Japan and China. Nepali honey is in good demand even in European countries as the product is considered better in quality as compared to foreign products. However, she says that the European Union (EU) did not include Nepal in the list of third countries for importing honey, because of its flaw in implementing the National Residue Monitoring Plan (NRMP). That is the reason Shrestha says she could not export her honey to European countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha’s company is producing honey by rearing bees in 80 hives in Chitwan and Dang. Besides, the company is working with beekeepers of Kailali, Pyuthan, Dang, Bardiya and other districts to check the quality and send it to the market with branding. Honey is sold in Nepal from her own Beekeeping Shop, online shop Daraz and Salesberry department store. Shrestha said that her Beekeeping Shop itself is looking after the foreign exports.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha said that organic honey in her company is made by bees that suck the flowers of plants like Indian butter tree, mustard, lychee and buckwheat. The price of honey of both the brands ranges from Rs 900 to Rs 1,200 per kg depending on the quality. Shrestha said, “I started my business with a small investment of around Rs 100,000. I continued to work hard even though the income was not good. But gradually, customers started frequenting after tasting the honey and the market size increased along with the profit as well.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha expressed that the practice of eating honey in urban areas of Nepal was not developed when she planned to open the Beekeeping Shop. She said, “My research shows that few people used to buy and eat foreign brands of honey.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A student of botany, she was conducting research on the quality of Nepali honey and modern beekeeping in the SNV project run with the help of the Dutch government at that time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She said that she started working about 27 years ago after seeing good potential of commercial beekeeping in Nepal following the same research. At present, 35 people including 30 beekeepers and 5 workers are employed in the business. She estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of the total beekeeping potential has been achieved in Nepal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha recalled, “When I started the Beekeeping Shop at Man Bhawan in Lalitpur, my family, friends and relatives tried to discourage me saying that it didn’t suit me doing such work, being a bachelor's degree holder in botany. But I did not give up. I didn't start this job because I couldn't get a job. I chose to do this work of my free will and continued to work hard in the same direction, while ensuring the quality of the product, and it made me a successful woman entrepreneur today.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14819', 'image' => '20220410070241_tbs-kasti-2_orig.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 19:01:54', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 7 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15076', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Supply Chain of Chemical Fertilizer Likely to Further Worsen', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The four companies, Silk Market Pvt Ltd, Zen Trade, JS Trade Company and Indian Potash Limited, had signed separate contracts with the state-owned Agriculture Inputs Company Limited and the Salt Trading Corporation for the import of chemical fertilizers. But they failed to import the fertilizers even after the deadline of the contract period.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Ashok Kumar Khadka, information officer of the Agriculture Inputs Company says that there is only a slim possibility for the companies to bring fertilizer on time. He said, “If this situation continues, the chances of fertilizer coming are low in future as well.” He stated that the failure of the companies to import fertilizer was due to the Covid-19 pandemic and China's new export policy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Farmers are continuously facing the problem of not getting chemical fertilizer every year during the farming season. There are indications that the circumstances will repeat this year as well.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Kumar Rajbhandari, spokesperson of the Salt Trading Corporation, Indian Potash Limited had signed a contract with the corporation last December for importing 25,000 metric tons of DAP and 75,000 tons of urea. It is a state-owned company of India. It supplied only 25,000 tons of DAP within the deadline. As for the remaining 75,000 tons of urea, it is yet to be decided whether the company is going to deliver the consignment or not.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The other three companies that signed contracts with the Agriculture Inputs Company have not been able to import chemical fertilizers even a month after their contract expired. A Nepali company called Silk Market had signed an agreement with Agriculture Inputs Company to import 60,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP, but the deadline has already expired. Similarly, Jane Trade had entered into two separate agreements with Agriculture Inputs Company for importing 25,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP. Another company, JS Trade, had agreed to import 25,000 tons of DAP with the Agriculture Inputs Company. The period for all these contracts have already expired, but, there are no signs for the import of chemical fertilizers.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Information Officer Khadka of the Agriculture Inputs Company, despite the expiration of the deadline for importing the chemical fertilizers, none of the companies have said they are not able to supply the fertilizers. He said that they are confident that they will bring the fertilizers soon. At present, the Agriculture Inputs Company has a stock of 500 tons of urea, 20,000 tons of DAP and 7,500 tons of potassium. Meanwhile, the Salt Trading Corporation has no fertilizers in reserve.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Spokesperson for Salt Trading, Rajbhandari said that due to the ongoing fluctuations in the global market, there may be shortage of chemical fertilizers in the coming days. He estimates that the problem may be due to the continuous rise in the price of fertilizers in the world market. According to Rajbhandari, the price of chemical fertilizer has gone up from 455 USD per ton to 1100 USD per ton.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14818', 'image' => '20220410050258_Fertilizer.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 17:02:22', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => null, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 8 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15075', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Suspension of Central Bank’s Governor has Weakened NRB during Crisis: Experts ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy. The central bank is the institution that can get the troubled economy back on track. The monetary policy brought by the central bank every year has a great impact on the stability and progress of the national economy. The financial sector and the economy are closely linked. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Due to various reasons, the country's economy has entered a critical situation. The economy, which was recovering from the effects of coronavirus, has been hit by liquidity crisis, inflation, energy shortage and declining foreign exchange reserves. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The governor of the central bank advises the government on policy interventions to prevent the economic crisis from deepening and to bail out the troubled economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In this sense, the country’s economy needs a governor at all times. Meanwhile, the government seems to have weakened the NRB by suspending Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari during such critical time. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Experts say that this will affect the main task of revitalizing the economy. They are of the view that the government has made a blunder by suspending the governor. They noted that the suspension of the governor was not appropriate, even during normal circumstances. There is no concrete reason to suspend the governor, they say. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The dispute between Finance Minister Janardan Sharma and Governor Adhikari could have been resolved through discussions. Experts say that there is weaknesses on both sides. Even though it could be resolved through discussions, they say that the situation was complicated by political bias. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A cabinet meeting held on Thursday has formed a committee to investigate various allegations against Governor Adhikari due to which he has been automatically suspended. The government made the decision public on Friday, prompting reactions from different perspectives. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Former finance secretary and economist Rameshwar Khanal says that the government has tried to weaken the NRB when the economy was in crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The economy has been in a critical situation since last July. Since then, NRB has been working on various issues for its improvement. In particular, NRB tightened imports to curb declining foreign exchange reserves. Apart from this, the regulatory body has also made various other policy arrangements in the meantime. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Despite this, the economy has entered a phase of crisis. In such a situation, NRB’s role is even more crucial. The central bank may have to make important decisions at any time. However, economist Khanal says that the government’s decision has closed the door for the central bank to take vital decisions. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"The government has suspended governor Adhikari and assigned deputy governor Neelam Dhungana as officiating governor,” said Khanal, “However, the acting governor's jurisdiction may be limited. No bold decisions can be made. Also, there is no guarantee that the officiating governor’s orders will be carried out. Thus, the NRB is weakened in terms of policy when the economy is in crisis.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He added that the government's move would have a negative impact on the overall economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Since there is no chief executive officer at the central bank, it will create a negative impact. Financial services could be affected,” he said, adding, “At the same time, we can lose our reputation in the international arena if there are shortcomings in foreign exchange trading.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of Nabil Bank Upendra Poudel said that there was no good coordination between the Ministry of Finance and NRB during the crisis. “I don't want to comment on what happened,” he said, “However, the economy is in crisis right now. At this time, everyone should coordinate with each other. Nevertheless, there is a lack of coordination between the two government bodies.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Bhuvan Dahal, former president of the Nepal Bankers' Association, it is wrong to suspend Governor Adhikari. He says this has really weakened NRB. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “The government's move to weaken the NRB will have a negative impact on the economy and the financial sector. The current situation is not normal as before, the economy is in crisis. There are also problems in the banking sector including the liquidity crisis. At this point, the suspension of the governor could have unpleasant consequences,” said Dahal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He said that the entire banking and financial sector is concerned over the incident. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“The banks have a history of CEOs facing injustice on issues related to credit flow and recovery. Now the governor of NRB has been treated unfairly,” he said. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“It is normal to have difference of opinion between the finance ministry and the central bank. This also happens abroad but not to this level. The issue should have been resolved through discussion. However, the government has done injustice by suspending an honest governor,” he added. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, president of Nepal Financial Institutions Association, Saroj Kaji Tuladhar said that the incident will have a psychological impact on the financial sector. He said that, in particular, it will affect financial stability. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of the Microfinance Bankers Association, Prakash Raj Sharma, said that the development of the financial sector and services would be affected due to this incident. Stating that it will also have an impact on the recovery of the troubled economy, he said that the financial sector would not support this decision of the government under any circumstances. </span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14817', 'image' => '20220410035208_NRBnew.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 15:51:30', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 9 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15074', 'article_category_id' => '275', 'title' => 'Foreign Employment Office to Issue Institutional Labour Permits through Online System', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Ramesh Aryal, chief of the Tahachal-based Foreign Employment Office, informed that such permits will be issued only through online system from April 15 onwards. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been providing services for renewal of labour permits as well as issuing institutional and personal labour permits. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Institutional labour permits are issued to aspiring migrant workers through manpower companies or their representatives. From now on, the manpower companies do not need to send their representatives personally to the Foreign Employment Office to acquire permits.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been renewing labour permits through online system since the last two months. More than 1000 service seekers have been benefitting from this new provision each day ever since the online system was launched. They have been able to renew their labour permits without visiting the office in person. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has started online service for issuing labour permits to make the process faceless, paperless and cashless.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Labour Minister Krishna Kumar Shrestha informed that the ministry has initiated online process for issuing labour permits to facilitate the aspiring migrant workers.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14816', 'image' => '20220410020648_20211215023334_20200315123851_1111.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 14:06:07', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 10 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15073', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Pathway to Camp II of Everest Opened ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. A team of icefall doctors, tasked with building the pathway to the world's highest peak, Mt Everest, has cleared the route from the base camp to the Camp II. According to the Mount Everest Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), six icefall doctors are currently working on installing signals, stairs, and ropes. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The climbers have now already left for Camp II after the pathway was cleared by the icefall doctors, said SPCC vice-president Lama Kaji Sherpa. In order to acclimatize, the climbers have to go from the base camp to the camp II and return. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Sherpa said that 15 stairs have been used from the base camp to the Camp II this time. Earlier, 32 were used in 2018, but only 20 in 2019 BS. The pathway to Camp II is also used to climb Lhotse and Nuptse mountains. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">With the onset of the tourist season, the number of foreign tourists visiting Khumbu in the Everest region has increased. Khum Prasad Poudal, an employee of the Lukla branch of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said that the flights to the Tenzing Hillary Airport in Lukla have increased. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> Up to 45 flights by helicopters and 35 flights by different airlines is taking place daily in Lukla these days. He said that as many as 266 tourists arrive in Khumbu by 14 aircraft and 225 tourists via 45 helicopter on Friday. -- RSS </span></span></span><br /> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14815', 'image' => '20220410115017_Camp2_01.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 11:49:35', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 11 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15072', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Tourism in Nepal Returning back to Normalcy ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => ' April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">This spring season witnessed considerable number of foreign tourists arriving in Nepal. A total of 42,006 tourists arrived here from air route in March alone. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Last year, during the same period, 14,977 foreign tourists had visited Nepal. According to the statistics of the Department of Tourism, Nepal has welcomed 78,747 foreign tourists since January this year till March end. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The government has formed a Tourism Revival Steering Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation which is mandated to undertake initiatives for the revival of the tourism industry by exploring new possibilities, identifying new avenues, promoting the tourism industry and creating enabling investment environment in the tourism sector among others. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Towards this end, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has been organizing Travel Marts in all seven provinces. </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The Fewa Festival is going to be held from April 13-14. A team of foreign chefs led by Master Chef UK contest winner Santosh Shah will reach various destinations for 10 days and participate in promotional events with special focus on culinary tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Mahesh Phuyal, general-manager of Ramada Encore, a 4-star hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu said that Ramada had 70 per cent occupancy of late. Mostly, American, India and European tourists book the 90-room hotel, shared Phuyal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The inflow of foreign tourists has excited tourism entrepreneurs in Pokhara, one of the popular tourist destinations in the country. Bharatra Parajuli, a local entrepreneur, said that the tourism entrepreneurs like him were upbeat due to increasing number of tourism activities in Pokhara. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He said that development and promotion of adventurous tourism destinations in and around Pokhara, famed for lakes and natural landscapes, has helped boost the country's tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Similarly, Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN)'s Acting President Binayak Shah shared that the hotels in Pokhara were receiving many inquiries lately. He opined that tourism was gradually reviving in Nepal after two years of pandemic-induced crisis. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Likewise, Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN)'s former vice-president Nilhari Bastola suggested that in order to revive tourism in Nepal, the government of Nepal needs to spread the message that Nepal is ready and open for tourist and this could be done through foreign ambassadors and consuls stationed in Nepal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He further recommended the government to devise attractive packages such as free visa for a month among others to bolster the influx of foreign tourists. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">NTB's CEO Dr Dhananjay Regmi informed that the number of tourists from India and Bangladesh had increased significantly as the board had conducted targeted promotional events in these countries. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Echoing with Shah, Regmi said that tourism in Nepal which was plagued by COVID-19 was slowly clawing back to normalcy. He called for the need to facilitate Indian tourists arriving in Nepal via road ways through various border points. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14814', 'image' => '20220410081846_himalaya-trekkers.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 08:17:31', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 12 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15071', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Suspends NRB Governor Adhikari', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">After repeated calls for bailing out the economy from crisis, the Ministry of Finance on Friday handed over the suspension letter to Governor Adhikari.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The ministry has assigned the responsibility of Officiating Governor to Deputy Governor Neelam Dhungana. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Thursday (April 7) had decided to investigative into the alleged role of Governor Adhikari in leaking sensitive information of NRB. The Cabinet meeting has formed a committee under the coordination of former Supreme Court Justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee has been asked to submit its report within a month.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A source at the finance ministry said that Governor Adhikari was suspended so that he would not be able to destroy evidences. If he emerges clean after the investigation, Adhikari will reassume his duties as NRB governor. However, if he is found guilty the prospect of Adhikari returning back to the top job will effectively come to an end.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari was appointed as the governor of NRB by the then government led by KP Sharma Oli. He was praised for adopting a private sector-friendly policy to uplift the economy battered by Covid-19. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, after the formation of the new government, it was revealed that he did not enjoy good relation with incumbent Finance Minister Janardan Sharma. Both Sharma and Adhikari had publicly denied their relation had soured.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">During a programme on Friday, Finance Minister Sharma had accused Adhikari, without mentioning his name, of being involved in leaking vital information to the media.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">While Finance Minister dismissed rumors that the country’s economy was in crisis as mentioned in the media, Governor Adhikari maintained that the country was following the footsteps of Sri Lanka.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-09', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14813', 'image' => '20220409103209_1649428919.governer (1).jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-09 10:31:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 13 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15070', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Nepal’s Economy Heading Towards Red Zone: Expert', 'sub_title' => 'Experts say Delayed Action of Government caused Current Economic Crisis', 'summary' => 'April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Milan Bishwakarma</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. The situation has worsened when the economy battered by the impact of Covid-19 for 2 years was gradually clawing back to normalcy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The economy has been pushed to the brink due to various factors including liquidity crunch in the banking system, inflation, energy scarcity, declining foreign exchange reserves among others.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">There were ominous signs since the beginning of the current fiscal year that the economy would undergo stress. The Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation Report published by Nepal Rastra Bank every month had indicated that the economy was on the verge of crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Balance of Payments (BoP) was in deficit while the foreign exchange reserves were declining since mid-July. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Besides, trade deficit was increasing and remittance inflow was declining. Banks were struggling to manage investible capital since the start of the current fiscal year. Experts say that the economy is already in crisis because the concerned authorities did not take proper measures to address those problems in time. They argue that the economy has been further troubled by the energy crisis and hike in fuel prices of late. They suggested that the government must take measures to ensure that the foreign exchange reserves get replenished. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Foreign exchange reserves are vital indicator of the economy. The economic situation depends on the volume of foreign exchange reserves. Foreign currency is needed for importing goods and services. It is not possible to import goods and services in lack of foreign exchange reserves. Lately, the economy is in crisis mainly because of the decline in foreign exchange reserves.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Economist Dr Chandra Mani Adhikari suggests that the government must take immediate steps to effectively mobilize the foreign exchange reserves to resolve the current crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The main crisis faced by the economy at present is the declining foreign exchange reserves,” says Adhikari, adding, “It affects the overall economy. But the government has done nothing to attract foreign currency but has only kept a stock of the currency.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He suggested the government adopt a policy to attract foreign investment and promote exports and tourism as well as encourage remittance inflow that in turn will earn foreign currency.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">According to Adhikari, the government must immediately announce a promotional package to bring the remittance into the country through formal channels.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Remittance is a good source of earning foreign currency. However, inflow of remittance has declined in recent period. It is said that the remittance is sent through informal channels. Therefore, the government must encourage to bring remittance through formal channels,” he added.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He is of the view that foreign currency can be earned if the expenditure of the projects run with foreign aid is increased.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Nepal’s economy was in grey zone but it has already entered the yellow zone now and will drift towards the red zone if immediate measures are not taken,” said Adhikari.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Stakeholders of the private sector have expressed their willingness to help resolve the current crisis. They say that they are ready to seek a solution in collaboration with the government.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">President of the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) Shekhar Golchha says that the private sector is ready to go for any extent to help the government resolve this crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“This is the time of crisis. We won’t consider profit and loss during such times. We are ready to rise above our business and cooperate with the government,” said Golchha, adding, “But the government must take the private sector in confidence, which is yet to happen.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the government has held discussion with the private sector in this regard but hasn’t taken any policy-level decision.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the latest move of the government is not helpful in solving the crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The government has not taken adequate measures to resolve the problem. It has just warded off immediate crisis. It is necessary to involve the private sector to seek a solution to the problem,” added Golchha.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He said that problems have surfaced due to the measures taken by the government to discourage imports all of a sudden.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“It was necessary to take such steps considering the current situation. But it has created additional problems. It is time to rethink if this is a long-term solution or not.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14812', 'image' => '20220408055208_economic crisis.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 17:51:11', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 14 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15069', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Government Preparing to Monitor Cooperatives by Hiring CAs and RAs', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs). As the financial risk of cooperatives is increasing, the federal government is preparing to tighten the monitoring of cooperatives by hiring more manpower under contract basis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Rudra Prasad Pandit, registrar of the Department of Cooperatives said, “The department does not have efficient and sufficient manpower to monitor the cooperatives. We will tighten the monitoring even by hiring CAs and RAs on a contract basis.” Pandit further said that action would be taken based on the issues surfacing after monitoring.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Although the posts of CA and data analyst have been arranged within the department for monitoring cooperatives, the posts have not been filled yet. Therefore, the department has put forward a plan to get CAs and RAs to work on contract basis. The department informed that a budget for this plan has been demanded from the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation. If the budget is not provided, then the department will manage it from internal resources.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the provisions of the constitution, the rights from registration to regulation of cooperatives have reached to the local level. On the basis of the scope of work of the organization, all three levels of governments can regulate the registration of cooperatives. However, the cooperatives have not been regulated due to lack of sufficient manpower at the state and local levels.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">There is a provision that the federal government can also monitor the cooperatives dealing with transactions more than Rs 500 million. Accordingly, the big cooperatives will be monitored regularly in collaboration with the state and local governments, said Registrar Pandit. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Out of 29,886 cooperatives across the country, only 125 are under the federal government. Similarly, there are 6002 under the state government and 23759 under the local government.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Cooperatives come second in terms of financial transaction after commercial banks. Currently, cooperatives across the country have mobilized more than Rs 1 trillion. Due to the lack of effective regulation by the government, some cooperatives have been mobilizing the money of the general savers indiscriminately. Institutions have become problematic when such operators embezzle money. From Oriental to civil cooperatives, more than 100 of them have been in trouble and billions of public deposits have not been returned.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-27', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14811', 'image' => '20220408041436_DepartmentofCooperative__20200922125726.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 16:13:52', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = falsesimplexml_load_file - [internal], line ?? include - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 60 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
Notice (8): Undefined variable: file [APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 133]Code Context// $file = 'http://aabhiyan:QUVLg8Wzs2F7G9N7@nepalstock.com.np/api/subindexdata.xml';if(!$xml = simplexml_load_file($file)){$viewFile = '/var/www/html/newbusinessage.com/app/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp' $dataForView = array( 'articles' => array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 7 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 8 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 9 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 10 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 11 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 12 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 13 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ), (int) 14 => array( 'Article' => array( [maximum depth reached] ) ) ), 'current_user' => null, 'logged_in' => false ) $articles = array( (int) 0 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15083', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Finance Minister Tells Nepali Ambassadors to Help in Tourism Promotion', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has instructed the heads of Nepal’s missions abroad to take initiative to send as much remittances as possible from Nepali nationals living in foreign countries.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 11: Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has instructed the heads of Nepal’s missions abroad to take initiative to send as much remittances as possible from Nepali nationals living in foreign countries. He also directed the diplomatic mission chiefs to take initiative to increase the visit of foreign tourists to Nepal. He gave such directives in a virtual meeting on Sunday afternoon with ambassadors, acting ambassadors, consul generals and heads of missions of more than two dozen countries.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Admitting that the government was under pressure to increase foreign exchange reserves and improve the balance of payments, Finance Minister Sharma said that all parties should work together during such crisis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are under pressure to increase our foreign exchange reserves. You have to play a crucial role in this matter. Encourage the citizens to send money as remittances. Create an environment for more tourists to come to Nepal through various tourism promotion programs,” said Minister Sharma.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stating that the inflow of remittance from mid-March to mid-April was Rs 91 billion, Minister Sharma said that there is a need to increase the inflow of remittances. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are bringing various packages to increase remittances. Homework has been done to give a certain percentage of reservation in IPO and FPO to those who send remittance through formal channels,” the minister furthers stated.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Minister Sharma also said that an investment conference should be organized to create an environment for increasing foreign investment in Nepal. \</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“We are creating a linear modality that allows borrowing only when a larger project is being built and the loan can be repaid by the project itself. We have also made it easy for non-resident Nepalis to open accounts in dollars,” he added. Minister Sharma also asked the envoys to give suggestions for the kinds of products in demand in various countries and if they can be produced in Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini said that the economy is under pressure and the government is taking measures to improve it gradually. Speaking on the occasion, Acting Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Neelam Dhungana pointed that the economy is under pressure and everyone needs to work together for improvement.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14825', 'image' => '20220411030432_1649626116.3 Mantri prf.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 15:03:53', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15082', 'article_category_id' => '273', 'title' => 'Preparations for ‘NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022’ in Final Phase ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the organizer – New Business Age Pvt Ltd, the summit and awards ceremony will be held in the capital on April 22.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The event is being organised with the objective of encouraging successful women entrepreneurs. The process of selecting the best women entrepreneurs from each province has been completed. Those selected will be given a certificate along with cash prize. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">An independent jury formed for the selection has already selected the women entrepreneurs to be awarded in various categories. Data of more than 2,000 women entrepreneurs from across the country have been collected for the selection process. The organiser informed that the award and honors will be provided in seven different categories. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In the run-up to the mega event, a group discussion among experts has already been held on the topic of ‘Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs after the Pandemic’. The organizer informed that the video of the discussion will be made public on the awards ceremony and further discussions will be held focusing on the issues raised during the discussion. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Under this event, there will be three interactive training programs in mid-April on business related topics for existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs across the country through hybrid medium. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Standard Chartered Bank is the title sponsor of the awards ceremony and Muktinath Bikas Bank is the co-sponsor. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, the medical partner for the event is Star Hospital. Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurship is the knowledge partner, Turkish Airlines is the airlines partner, Daraz is the ecommerce partner, NECO Insurance Limited is the insurance partner and Fiber Net is the internet partner. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, the event is also supported by Agriculture Development Bank, Sipradi Trading, Reliable Life Insurance, Progressive Finance Limited, National Life Insurance, Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (FWEAN), Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and Nepal Rastra Bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">New Business Age has been conducting various awards programs to help in the promotion of industry, business and entrepreneurship. A similar program to honor women entrepreneurs was held on January 31 last year. Last November, the startup entrepreneurs were also honored in the same way. </span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14824', 'image' => '20220411015407_1649625777.Clipboard08.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 13:53:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15081', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Former Finance Ministers Draw Government's Attention to Economic Crisis ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Former Finance Ministers Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Surendra Pandey and Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada drew the attention of the government by organizing a press conference on Sunday (April 10). On the occasion, they urged the government not to allow the country's economy to deteriorate. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">In a statement distributed to the media on the occasion, they stated that the external sector is facing crisis. Stating that imports have increased uncontrollably in the current fiscal year and reached around Rs 1500 billion in eight months, the former finance ministers warned that imports will reach Rs 2200 billion if the present situation continues.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The former finance ministers opined that the growing import has not contributed to production except leading to increased consumption. In this backdrop, they urged the government to think about the economic health of the country before it is too late. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Noting that trade deficit has increased at present, the former finance ministers projected it to exceed Rs 2000 billion by the close of the current fiscal year if the present situation continues. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">They also objected to the government's decision to suspend Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14823', 'image' => '20220411110007_pro_ktm_umla.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:59:27', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15080', 'article_category_id' => '219', 'title' => 'Commercial Banks Agree not to Increase Interest Rates', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The maximum interest on deposits for the review period will be 11.03 percent, as per the understanding reached between the CEOs of all commercial banks.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">A meeting of Nepal Bankers’ Association, an umbrella body of commercial banks, on Sunday took a decision to this effect. The banks did not increase interest rates in the month of Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April) as deposit collection did not improve even after increasing the interest rates.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">As per the provision of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), commercial banks need to make public the interest rates every month. Stating that the commercial banks were involved in unhealthy competition of increasing the interest rates, the central bank had made arrangements that allowed the banks to increase the interest rate by only 10 percent compared to the previous month.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The commercial banks had increased the interest rate in the month of Falgun (mid-February to mid-March) within the same criteria fixed by the NRB.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14822', 'image' => '20220411104228_Banks - Copy.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:41:46', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15079', 'article_category_id' => '218', 'title' => 'NBA Decides not to Issue LCs for importing Luxurious Goods', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones. The association's meeting on Sunday took a decision to this effect. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The banks have agreed not to open LCs to import luxurious goods like vehicles, gold, silver as well as sugar, chewing gum, dry foods, furniture, cigarettes, alcohol, perfume and mobile phones among others.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">According to chief executive officer of the Nepal Bank Limited, Krishna Bahadur Adhikari, who is also a member of NBA's executive committee, the commercial banks took such decision following a directive from the Nepal Rastra Bank. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Earlier, the central bank in a bid to stop the outflow of the country's depleting foreign exchange reserves had imposed 50 to 100 percent cash margin on the imports of 47 different goods. Likewise, the central bank had recently summoned the CEOs of all 27 commercial banks and unofficially directed them to halt LC to import luxurious goods including vehicles. </span><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> -- RSS </span><br /> </span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14821', 'image' => '20220411081524_LC.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 08:14:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15078', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Begins Baseless Investigation against NRB Governor', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government has launched an investigation without any credible basis into the alleged role of leaking vital information by Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari, who was attempting to revive the crisis-ridden economy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A cabinet meeting on Thursday formed a probe committee headed by former justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee includes Surya Thapa and Dr Chandrakant Poudyal as members.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">With the formation of the committee, the governor's rights have been automatically suspended. The central bank is currently headed by Officiating Governor Dr Neelam Dhungana.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">There is a provision in the Nepal Rastra Bank Act-2058 BS that allows the government to take action against the governor for the breach of 6 different points.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government can fire the NRB governor, upon the recommendation of the probe committee, if he is disqualified for being a bank operator as well as lack of ability to work as per the bank’s objective, causing damage to banking and financial system, disqualification of license to operate business due to misconduct, or if found to be untrustworthy and for skipping the board meeting for three times without any credible grounds.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the government has started the investigation process without providing any credible basis for the probe. Experts have pointed out that the probe into the governor when the state of the economy is deteriorating has sent the wrong message to the public. They see it as an interference with the NRB's autonomy. Although it is common to have differences between the central bank and the finance minister, suspending the governor in the current situation has sent the wrong message, says Chiranjeevi Nepal, a former governor himself. Such differences occur elsewhere.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"As the government is the super regulator, it can also investigate the regulatory body," says the former governor of Nepal, adding, “But the decision to investigate the role of the governor during such crisis has cast down the morale of the society.”</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Since the objectives of the central bank and the government contradict with each other in some points, the differences between the finance minister and the governor should be taken as normal, says Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">According to him, the Finance Ministry aims to spend as much money as possible to achieve economic growth but the central bank has to control the spending to avoid inflation and also needs to keep the foreign exchange reserves in balance.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">He added that the government had interfered in the central bank’s autonomy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Another former governor, Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri, also admits that the Ministry of Finance has started interfering in the banking system. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari, who joined NRB as an assistant officer, retired as a deputy governor. He became the governor upon the recommendation of the then Finance Minister Yuvaraj Khatiwada around two years ago.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari has been praised for bringing the monetary policy to revive the Covid-affected economy soon after he became governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the conflict erupted after Finance Minister Janardan Sharma instructed the central bank to postpone the issuance of monetary policy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Recently, there was a dispute between the finance minister and the governor over the banks’ interest rate. The Finance Minister was infuriated with the governor after the finance minister’s instruction to release illegal properties came out in the media. It resulted in the suspension of the governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14820', 'image' => '20220410095006_fin min sharma.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 21:49:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15077', 'article_category_id' => '268', 'title' => 'A Tale of Success: Nepali Beekeeper Exporting Honey to Japan and China', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Prashant Khadka</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan. Her products 'TBS Pure Honey' and 'KASTI Himalayan Honey' are now exported to Japan, China and other countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">About 10 percent of the 12 tons of honey Shrestha produces annually at her company named ‘Beekeeping Shop’ is exported to Japan and China. Nepali honey is in good demand even in European countries as the product is considered better in quality as compared to foreign products. However, she says that the European Union (EU) did not include Nepal in the list of third countries for importing honey, because of its flaw in implementing the National Residue Monitoring Plan (NRMP). That is the reason Shrestha says she could not export her honey to European countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha’s company is producing honey by rearing bees in 80 hives in Chitwan and Dang. Besides, the company is working with beekeepers of Kailali, Pyuthan, Dang, Bardiya and other districts to check the quality and send it to the market with branding. Honey is sold in Nepal from her own Beekeeping Shop, online shop Daraz and Salesberry department store. Shrestha said that her Beekeeping Shop itself is looking after the foreign exports.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha said that organic honey in her company is made by bees that suck the flowers of plants like Indian butter tree, mustard, lychee and buckwheat. The price of honey of both the brands ranges from Rs 900 to Rs 1,200 per kg depending on the quality. Shrestha said, “I started my business with a small investment of around Rs 100,000. I continued to work hard even though the income was not good. But gradually, customers started frequenting after tasting the honey and the market size increased along with the profit as well.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha expressed that the practice of eating honey in urban areas of Nepal was not developed when she planned to open the Beekeeping Shop. She said, “My research shows that few people used to buy and eat foreign brands of honey.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A student of botany, she was conducting research on the quality of Nepali honey and modern beekeeping in the SNV project run with the help of the Dutch government at that time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She said that she started working about 27 years ago after seeing good potential of commercial beekeeping in Nepal following the same research. At present, 35 people including 30 beekeepers and 5 workers are employed in the business. She estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of the total beekeeping potential has been achieved in Nepal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha recalled, “When I started the Beekeeping Shop at Man Bhawan in Lalitpur, my family, friends and relatives tried to discourage me saying that it didn’t suit me doing such work, being a bachelor's degree holder in botany. But I did not give up. I didn't start this job because I couldn't get a job. I chose to do this work of my free will and continued to work hard in the same direction, while ensuring the quality of the product, and it made me a successful woman entrepreneur today.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14819', 'image' => '20220410070241_tbs-kasti-2_orig.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 19:01:54', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 7 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15076', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Supply Chain of Chemical Fertilizer Likely to Further Worsen', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The four companies, Silk Market Pvt Ltd, Zen Trade, JS Trade Company and Indian Potash Limited, had signed separate contracts with the state-owned Agriculture Inputs Company Limited and the Salt Trading Corporation for the import of chemical fertilizers. But they failed to import the fertilizers even after the deadline of the contract period.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Ashok Kumar Khadka, information officer of the Agriculture Inputs Company says that there is only a slim possibility for the companies to bring fertilizer on time. He said, “If this situation continues, the chances of fertilizer coming are low in future as well.” He stated that the failure of the companies to import fertilizer was due to the Covid-19 pandemic and China's new export policy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Farmers are continuously facing the problem of not getting chemical fertilizer every year during the farming season. There are indications that the circumstances will repeat this year as well.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Kumar Rajbhandari, spokesperson of the Salt Trading Corporation, Indian Potash Limited had signed a contract with the corporation last December for importing 25,000 metric tons of DAP and 75,000 tons of urea. It is a state-owned company of India. It supplied only 25,000 tons of DAP within the deadline. As for the remaining 75,000 tons of urea, it is yet to be decided whether the company is going to deliver the consignment or not.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The other three companies that signed contracts with the Agriculture Inputs Company have not been able to import chemical fertilizers even a month after their contract expired. A Nepali company called Silk Market had signed an agreement with Agriculture Inputs Company to import 60,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP, but the deadline has already expired. Similarly, Jane Trade had entered into two separate agreements with Agriculture Inputs Company for importing 25,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP. Another company, JS Trade, had agreed to import 25,000 tons of DAP with the Agriculture Inputs Company. The period for all these contracts have already expired, but, there are no signs for the import of chemical fertilizers.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Information Officer Khadka of the Agriculture Inputs Company, despite the expiration of the deadline for importing the chemical fertilizers, none of the companies have said they are not able to supply the fertilizers. He said that they are confident that they will bring the fertilizers soon. At present, the Agriculture Inputs Company has a stock of 500 tons of urea, 20,000 tons of DAP and 7,500 tons of potassium. Meanwhile, the Salt Trading Corporation has no fertilizers in reserve.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Spokesperson for Salt Trading, Rajbhandari said that due to the ongoing fluctuations in the global market, there may be shortage of chemical fertilizers in the coming days. He estimates that the problem may be due to the continuous rise in the price of fertilizers in the world market. According to Rajbhandari, the price of chemical fertilizer has gone up from 455 USD per ton to 1100 USD per ton.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14818', 'image' => '20220410050258_Fertilizer.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 17:02:22', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => null, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 8 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15075', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Suspension of Central Bank’s Governor has Weakened NRB during Crisis: Experts ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy. The central bank is the institution that can get the troubled economy back on track. The monetary policy brought by the central bank every year has a great impact on the stability and progress of the national economy. The financial sector and the economy are closely linked. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Due to various reasons, the country's economy has entered a critical situation. The economy, which was recovering from the effects of coronavirus, has been hit by liquidity crisis, inflation, energy shortage and declining foreign exchange reserves. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The governor of the central bank advises the government on policy interventions to prevent the economic crisis from deepening and to bail out the troubled economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In this sense, the country’s economy needs a governor at all times. Meanwhile, the government seems to have weakened the NRB by suspending Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari during such critical time. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Experts say that this will affect the main task of revitalizing the economy. They are of the view that the government has made a blunder by suspending the governor. They noted that the suspension of the governor was not appropriate, even during normal circumstances. There is no concrete reason to suspend the governor, they say. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The dispute between Finance Minister Janardan Sharma and Governor Adhikari could have been resolved through discussions. Experts say that there is weaknesses on both sides. Even though it could be resolved through discussions, they say that the situation was complicated by political bias. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A cabinet meeting held on Thursday has formed a committee to investigate various allegations against Governor Adhikari due to which he has been automatically suspended. The government made the decision public on Friday, prompting reactions from different perspectives. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Former finance secretary and economist Rameshwar Khanal says that the government has tried to weaken the NRB when the economy was in crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The economy has been in a critical situation since last July. Since then, NRB has been working on various issues for its improvement. In particular, NRB tightened imports to curb declining foreign exchange reserves. Apart from this, the regulatory body has also made various other policy arrangements in the meantime. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Despite this, the economy has entered a phase of crisis. In such a situation, NRB’s role is even more crucial. The central bank may have to make important decisions at any time. However, economist Khanal says that the government’s decision has closed the door for the central bank to take vital decisions. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"The government has suspended governor Adhikari and assigned deputy governor Neelam Dhungana as officiating governor,” said Khanal, “However, the acting governor's jurisdiction may be limited. No bold decisions can be made. Also, there is no guarantee that the officiating governor’s orders will be carried out. Thus, the NRB is weakened in terms of policy when the economy is in crisis.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He added that the government's move would have a negative impact on the overall economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Since there is no chief executive officer at the central bank, it will create a negative impact. Financial services could be affected,” he said, adding, “At the same time, we can lose our reputation in the international arena if there are shortcomings in foreign exchange trading.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of Nabil Bank Upendra Poudel said that there was no good coordination between the Ministry of Finance and NRB during the crisis. “I don't want to comment on what happened,” he said, “However, the economy is in crisis right now. At this time, everyone should coordinate with each other. Nevertheless, there is a lack of coordination between the two government bodies.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Bhuvan Dahal, former president of the Nepal Bankers' Association, it is wrong to suspend Governor Adhikari. He says this has really weakened NRB. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “The government's move to weaken the NRB will have a negative impact on the economy and the financial sector. The current situation is not normal as before, the economy is in crisis. There are also problems in the banking sector including the liquidity crisis. At this point, the suspension of the governor could have unpleasant consequences,” said Dahal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He said that the entire banking and financial sector is concerned over the incident. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“The banks have a history of CEOs facing injustice on issues related to credit flow and recovery. Now the governor of NRB has been treated unfairly,” he said. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“It is normal to have difference of opinion between the finance ministry and the central bank. This also happens abroad but not to this level. The issue should have been resolved through discussion. However, the government has done injustice by suspending an honest governor,” he added. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, president of Nepal Financial Institutions Association, Saroj Kaji Tuladhar said that the incident will have a psychological impact on the financial sector. He said that, in particular, it will affect financial stability. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of the Microfinance Bankers Association, Prakash Raj Sharma, said that the development of the financial sector and services would be affected due to this incident. Stating that it will also have an impact on the recovery of the troubled economy, he said that the financial sector would not support this decision of the government under any circumstances. </span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14817', 'image' => '20220410035208_NRBnew.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 15:51:30', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 9 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15074', 'article_category_id' => '275', 'title' => 'Foreign Employment Office to Issue Institutional Labour Permits through Online System', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Ramesh Aryal, chief of the Tahachal-based Foreign Employment Office, informed that such permits will be issued only through online system from April 15 onwards. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been providing services for renewal of labour permits as well as issuing institutional and personal labour permits. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Institutional labour permits are issued to aspiring migrant workers through manpower companies or their representatives. From now on, the manpower companies do not need to send their representatives personally to the Foreign Employment Office to acquire permits.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been renewing labour permits through online system since the last two months. More than 1000 service seekers have been benefitting from this new provision each day ever since the online system was launched. They have been able to renew their labour permits without visiting the office in person. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has started online service for issuing labour permits to make the process faceless, paperless and cashless.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Labour Minister Krishna Kumar Shrestha informed that the ministry has initiated online process for issuing labour permits to facilitate the aspiring migrant workers.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14816', 'image' => '20220410020648_20211215023334_20200315123851_1111.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 14:06:07', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 10 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15073', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Pathway to Camp II of Everest Opened ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. A team of icefall doctors, tasked with building the pathway to the world's highest peak, Mt Everest, has cleared the route from the base camp to the Camp II. According to the Mount Everest Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), six icefall doctors are currently working on installing signals, stairs, and ropes. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The climbers have now already left for Camp II after the pathway was cleared by the icefall doctors, said SPCC vice-president Lama Kaji Sherpa. In order to acclimatize, the climbers have to go from the base camp to the camp II and return. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Sherpa said that 15 stairs have been used from the base camp to the Camp II this time. Earlier, 32 were used in 2018, but only 20 in 2019 BS. The pathway to Camp II is also used to climb Lhotse and Nuptse mountains. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">With the onset of the tourist season, the number of foreign tourists visiting Khumbu in the Everest region has increased. Khum Prasad Poudal, an employee of the Lukla branch of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said that the flights to the Tenzing Hillary Airport in Lukla have increased. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> Up to 45 flights by helicopters and 35 flights by different airlines is taking place daily in Lukla these days. He said that as many as 266 tourists arrive in Khumbu by 14 aircraft and 225 tourists via 45 helicopter on Friday. -- RSS </span></span></span><br /> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14815', 'image' => '20220410115017_Camp2_01.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 11:49:35', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 11 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15072', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Tourism in Nepal Returning back to Normalcy ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => ' April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">This spring season witnessed considerable number of foreign tourists arriving in Nepal. A total of 42,006 tourists arrived here from air route in March alone. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Last year, during the same period, 14,977 foreign tourists had visited Nepal. According to the statistics of the Department of Tourism, Nepal has welcomed 78,747 foreign tourists since January this year till March end. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The government has formed a Tourism Revival Steering Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation which is mandated to undertake initiatives for the revival of the tourism industry by exploring new possibilities, identifying new avenues, promoting the tourism industry and creating enabling investment environment in the tourism sector among others. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Towards this end, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has been organizing Travel Marts in all seven provinces. </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The Fewa Festival is going to be held from April 13-14. A team of foreign chefs led by Master Chef UK contest winner Santosh Shah will reach various destinations for 10 days and participate in promotional events with special focus on culinary tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Mahesh Phuyal, general-manager of Ramada Encore, a 4-star hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu said that Ramada had 70 per cent occupancy of late. Mostly, American, India and European tourists book the 90-room hotel, shared Phuyal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The inflow of foreign tourists has excited tourism entrepreneurs in Pokhara, one of the popular tourist destinations in the country. Bharatra Parajuli, a local entrepreneur, said that the tourism entrepreneurs like him were upbeat due to increasing number of tourism activities in Pokhara. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He said that development and promotion of adventurous tourism destinations in and around Pokhara, famed for lakes and natural landscapes, has helped boost the country's tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Similarly, Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN)'s Acting President Binayak Shah shared that the hotels in Pokhara were receiving many inquiries lately. He opined that tourism was gradually reviving in Nepal after two years of pandemic-induced crisis. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Likewise, Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN)'s former vice-president Nilhari Bastola suggested that in order to revive tourism in Nepal, the government of Nepal needs to spread the message that Nepal is ready and open for tourist and this could be done through foreign ambassadors and consuls stationed in Nepal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He further recommended the government to devise attractive packages such as free visa for a month among others to bolster the influx of foreign tourists. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">NTB's CEO Dr Dhananjay Regmi informed that the number of tourists from India and Bangladesh had increased significantly as the board had conducted targeted promotional events in these countries. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Echoing with Shah, Regmi said that tourism in Nepal which was plagued by COVID-19 was slowly clawing back to normalcy. He called for the need to facilitate Indian tourists arriving in Nepal via road ways through various border points. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14814', 'image' => '20220410081846_himalaya-trekkers.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 08:17:31', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 12 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15071', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Suspends NRB Governor Adhikari', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">After repeated calls for bailing out the economy from crisis, the Ministry of Finance on Friday handed over the suspension letter to Governor Adhikari.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The ministry has assigned the responsibility of Officiating Governor to Deputy Governor Neelam Dhungana. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Thursday (April 7) had decided to investigative into the alleged role of Governor Adhikari in leaking sensitive information of NRB. The Cabinet meeting has formed a committee under the coordination of former Supreme Court Justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee has been asked to submit its report within a month.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A source at the finance ministry said that Governor Adhikari was suspended so that he would not be able to destroy evidences. If he emerges clean after the investigation, Adhikari will reassume his duties as NRB governor. However, if he is found guilty the prospect of Adhikari returning back to the top job will effectively come to an end.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari was appointed as the governor of NRB by the then government led by KP Sharma Oli. He was praised for adopting a private sector-friendly policy to uplift the economy battered by Covid-19. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, after the formation of the new government, it was revealed that he did not enjoy good relation with incumbent Finance Minister Janardan Sharma. Both Sharma and Adhikari had publicly denied their relation had soured.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">During a programme on Friday, Finance Minister Sharma had accused Adhikari, without mentioning his name, of being involved in leaking vital information to the media.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">While Finance Minister dismissed rumors that the country’s economy was in crisis as mentioned in the media, Governor Adhikari maintained that the country was following the footsteps of Sri Lanka.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-09', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14813', 'image' => '20220409103209_1649428919.governer (1).jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-09 10:31:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 13 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15070', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Nepal’s Economy Heading Towards Red Zone: Expert', 'sub_title' => 'Experts say Delayed Action of Government caused Current Economic Crisis', 'summary' => 'April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Milan Bishwakarma</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. The situation has worsened when the economy battered by the impact of Covid-19 for 2 years was gradually clawing back to normalcy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The economy has been pushed to the brink due to various factors including liquidity crunch in the banking system, inflation, energy scarcity, declining foreign exchange reserves among others.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">There were ominous signs since the beginning of the current fiscal year that the economy would undergo stress. The Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation Report published by Nepal Rastra Bank every month had indicated that the economy was on the verge of crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Balance of Payments (BoP) was in deficit while the foreign exchange reserves were declining since mid-July. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Besides, trade deficit was increasing and remittance inflow was declining. Banks were struggling to manage investible capital since the start of the current fiscal year. Experts say that the economy is already in crisis because the concerned authorities did not take proper measures to address those problems in time. They argue that the economy has been further troubled by the energy crisis and hike in fuel prices of late. They suggested that the government must take measures to ensure that the foreign exchange reserves get replenished. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Foreign exchange reserves are vital indicator of the economy. The economic situation depends on the volume of foreign exchange reserves. Foreign currency is needed for importing goods and services. It is not possible to import goods and services in lack of foreign exchange reserves. Lately, the economy is in crisis mainly because of the decline in foreign exchange reserves.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Economist Dr Chandra Mani Adhikari suggests that the government must take immediate steps to effectively mobilize the foreign exchange reserves to resolve the current crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The main crisis faced by the economy at present is the declining foreign exchange reserves,” says Adhikari, adding, “It affects the overall economy. But the government has done nothing to attract foreign currency but has only kept a stock of the currency.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He suggested the government adopt a policy to attract foreign investment and promote exports and tourism as well as encourage remittance inflow that in turn will earn foreign currency.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">According to Adhikari, the government must immediately announce a promotional package to bring the remittance into the country through formal channels.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Remittance is a good source of earning foreign currency. However, inflow of remittance has declined in recent period. It is said that the remittance is sent through informal channels. Therefore, the government must encourage to bring remittance through formal channels,” he added.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He is of the view that foreign currency can be earned if the expenditure of the projects run with foreign aid is increased.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Nepal’s economy was in grey zone but it has already entered the yellow zone now and will drift towards the red zone if immediate measures are not taken,” said Adhikari.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Stakeholders of the private sector have expressed their willingness to help resolve the current crisis. They say that they are ready to seek a solution in collaboration with the government.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">President of the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) Shekhar Golchha says that the private sector is ready to go for any extent to help the government resolve this crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“This is the time of crisis. We won’t consider profit and loss during such times. We are ready to rise above our business and cooperate with the government,” said Golchha, adding, “But the government must take the private sector in confidence, which is yet to happen.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the government has held discussion with the private sector in this regard but hasn’t taken any policy-level decision.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the latest move of the government is not helpful in solving the crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The government has not taken adequate measures to resolve the problem. It has just warded off immediate crisis. It is necessary to involve the private sector to seek a solution to the problem,” added Golchha.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He said that problems have surfaced due to the measures taken by the government to discourage imports all of a sudden.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“It was necessary to take such steps considering the current situation. But it has created additional problems. It is time to rethink if this is a long-term solution or not.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14812', 'image' => '20220408055208_economic crisis.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 17:51:11', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 14 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15069', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Government Preparing to Monitor Cooperatives by Hiring CAs and RAs', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs). As the financial risk of cooperatives is increasing, the federal government is preparing to tighten the monitoring of cooperatives by hiring more manpower under contract basis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Rudra Prasad Pandit, registrar of the Department of Cooperatives said, “The department does not have efficient and sufficient manpower to monitor the cooperatives. We will tighten the monitoring even by hiring CAs and RAs on a contract basis.” Pandit further said that action would be taken based on the issues surfacing after monitoring.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Although the posts of CA and data analyst have been arranged within the department for monitoring cooperatives, the posts have not been filled yet. Therefore, the department has put forward a plan to get CAs and RAs to work on contract basis. The department informed that a budget for this plan has been demanded from the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation. If the budget is not provided, then the department will manage it from internal resources.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the provisions of the constitution, the rights from registration to regulation of cooperatives have reached to the local level. On the basis of the scope of work of the organization, all three levels of governments can regulate the registration of cooperatives. However, the cooperatives have not been regulated due to lack of sufficient manpower at the state and local levels.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">There is a provision that the federal government can also monitor the cooperatives dealing with transactions more than Rs 500 million. Accordingly, the big cooperatives will be monitored regularly in collaboration with the state and local governments, said Registrar Pandit. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Out of 29,886 cooperatives across the country, only 125 are under the federal government. Similarly, there are 6002 under the state government and 23759 under the local government.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Cooperatives come second in terms of financial transaction after commercial banks. Currently, cooperatives across the country have mobilized more than Rs 1 trillion. Due to the lack of effective regulation by the government, some cooperatives have been mobilizing the money of the general savers indiscriminately. Institutions have become problematic when such operators embezzle money. From Oriental to civil cooperatives, more than 100 of them have been in trouble and billions of public deposits have not been returned.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-27', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14811', 'image' => '20220408041436_DepartmentofCooperative__20200922125726.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 16:13:52', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = false $xml = falseinclude - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 133 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
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He also directed the diplomatic mission chiefs to take initiative to increase the visit of foreign tourists to Nepal. He gave such directives in a virtual meeting on Sunday afternoon with ambassadors, acting ambassadors, consul generals and heads of missions of more than two dozen countries.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Admitting that the government was under pressure to increase foreign exchange reserves and improve the balance of payments, Finance Minister Sharma said that all parties should work together during such crisis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are under pressure to increase our foreign exchange reserves. You have to play a crucial role in this matter. Encourage the citizens to send money as remittances. Create an environment for more tourists to come to Nepal through various tourism promotion programs,” said Minister Sharma.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stating that the inflow of remittance from mid-March to mid-April was Rs 91 billion, Minister Sharma said that there is a need to increase the inflow of remittances. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “We are bringing various packages to increase remittances. Homework has been done to give a certain percentage of reservation in IPO and FPO to those who send remittance through formal channels,” the minister furthers stated.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Minister Sharma also said that an investment conference should be organized to create an environment for increasing foreign investment in Nepal. \</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“We are creating a linear modality that allows borrowing only when a larger project is being built and the loan can be repaid by the project itself. We have also made it easy for non-resident Nepalis to open accounts in dollars,” he added. Minister Sharma also asked the envoys to give suggestions for the kinds of products in demand in various countries and if they can be produced in Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Finance Secretary Madhu Kumar Marasini said that the economy is under pressure and the government is taking measures to improve it gradually. Speaking on the occasion, Acting Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Neelam Dhungana pointed that the economy is under pressure and everyone needs to work together for improvement.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14825', 'image' => '20220411030432_1649626116.3 Mantri prf.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 15:03:53', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 1 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15082', 'article_category_id' => '273', 'title' => 'Preparations for ‘NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022’ in Final Phase ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 11: Preparations for the upcoming Standard Chartered NewBiz Business Women Summit and Awards 2022 is in the final stage.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the organizer – New Business Age Pvt Ltd, the summit and awards ceremony will be held in the capital on April 22.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The event is being organised with the objective of encouraging successful women entrepreneurs. The process of selecting the best women entrepreneurs from each province has been completed. Those selected will be given a certificate along with cash prize. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">An independent jury formed for the selection has already selected the women entrepreneurs to be awarded in various categories. Data of more than 2,000 women entrepreneurs from across the country have been collected for the selection process. The organiser informed that the award and honors will be provided in seven different categories. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In the run-up to the mega event, a group discussion among experts has already been held on the topic of ‘Opportunities for Women Entrepreneurs after the Pandemic’. The organizer informed that the video of the discussion will be made public on the awards ceremony and further discussions will be held focusing on the issues raised during the discussion. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Under this event, there will be three interactive training programs in mid-April on business related topics for existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs across the country through hybrid medium. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Standard Chartered Bank is the title sponsor of the awards ceremony and Muktinath Bikas Bank is the co-sponsor. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, the medical partner for the event is Star Hospital. Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurship is the knowledge partner, Turkish Airlines is the airlines partner, Daraz is the ecommerce partner, NECO Insurance Limited is the insurance partner and Fiber Net is the internet partner. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, the event is also supported by Agriculture Development Bank, Sipradi Trading, Reliable Life Insurance, Progressive Finance Limited, National Life Insurance, Federation of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (FWEAN), Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and Nepal Rastra Bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">New Business Age has been conducting various awards programs to help in the promotion of industry, business and entrepreneurship. A similar program to honor women entrepreneurs was held on January 31 last year. Last November, the startup entrepreneurs were also honored in the same way. </span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14824', 'image' => '20220411015407_1649625777.Clipboard08.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 13:53:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 2 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15081', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Former Finance Ministers Draw Government's Attention to Economic Crisis ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: Three former Finance Ministers have drawn the attention of the government to focus to economic stability, development and good governance. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Former Finance Ministers Bishnu Prasad Poudel, Surendra Pandey and Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada drew the attention of the government by organizing a press conference on Sunday (April 10). On the occasion, they urged the government not to allow the country's economy to deteriorate. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">In a statement distributed to the media on the occasion, they stated that the external sector is facing crisis. Stating that imports have increased uncontrollably in the current fiscal year and reached around Rs 1500 billion in eight months, the former finance ministers warned that imports will reach Rs 2200 billion if the present situation continues.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The former finance ministers opined that the growing import has not contributed to production except leading to increased consumption. In this backdrop, they urged the government to think about the economic health of the country before it is too late. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Noting that trade deficit has increased at present, the former finance ministers projected it to exceed Rs 2000 billion by the close of the current fiscal year if the present situation continues. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">They also objected to the government's decision to suspend Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14823', 'image' => '20220411110007_pro_ktm_umla.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:59:27', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 3 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15080', 'article_category_id' => '219', 'title' => 'Commercial Banks Agree not to Increase Interest Rates', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 11: Commercial banks have reached an understanding for a gentleman’s agreement not to increase the interest rates for the month of Baishakh (mid-April to mid-May). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The maximum interest on deposits for the review period will be 11.03 percent, as per the understanding reached between the CEOs of all commercial banks.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">A meeting of Nepal Bankers’ Association, an umbrella body of commercial banks, on Sunday took a decision to this effect. The banks did not increase interest rates in the month of Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April) as deposit collection did not improve even after increasing the interest rates.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">As per the provision of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), commercial banks need to make public the interest rates every month. Stating that the commercial banks were involved in unhealthy competition of increasing the interest rates, the central bank had made arrangements that allowed the banks to increase the interest rate by only 10 percent compared to the previous month.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The commercial banks had increased the interest rate in the month of Falgun (mid-February to mid-March) within the same criteria fixed by the NRB.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14822', 'image' => '20220411104228_Banks - Copy.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 10:41:46', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 4 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15079', 'article_category_id' => '218', 'title' => 'NBA Decides not to Issue LCs for importing Luxurious Goods', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 11: The Nepal Bankers' Association (NBA), an umbrella body of chief executive officers of commercial banks, has decided not to issue letters of credit for the import of luxurious goods except in case of extremely needed ones. The association's meeting on Sunday took a decision to this effect. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The banks have agreed not to open LCs to import luxurious goods like vehicles, gold, silver as well as sugar, chewing gum, dry foods, furniture, cigarettes, alcohol, perfume and mobile phones among others.</span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">According to chief executive officer of the Nepal Bank Limited, Krishna Bahadur Adhikari, who is also a member of NBA's executive committee, the commercial banks took such decision following a directive from the Nepal Rastra Bank. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Earlier, the central bank in a bid to stop the outflow of the country's depleting foreign exchange reserves had imposed 50 to 100 percent cash margin on the imports of 47 different goods. Likewise, the central bank had recently summoned the CEOs of all 27 commercial banks and unofficially directed them to halt LC to import luxurious goods including vehicles. </span><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> -- RSS </span><br /> </span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-11', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14821', 'image' => '20220411081524_LC.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-11 08:14:32', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 5 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15078', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Begins Baseless Investigation against NRB Governor', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 10: The government has intervened in the formulation and implementation of the country's monetary policy at a time when key economic indicators such as Balance of Payments, inflow of remittance and foreign exchange reserves are all negative.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government has launched an investigation without any credible basis into the alleged role of leaking vital information by Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari, who was attempting to revive the crisis-ridden economy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A cabinet meeting on Thursday formed a probe committee headed by former justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee includes Surya Thapa and Dr Chandrakant Poudyal as members.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">With the formation of the committee, the governor's rights have been automatically suspended. The central bank is currently headed by Officiating Governor Dr Neelam Dhungana.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">There is a provision in the Nepal Rastra Bank Act-2058 BS that allows the government to take action against the governor for the breach of 6 different points.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The government can fire the NRB governor, upon the recommendation of the probe committee, if he is disqualified for being a bank operator as well as lack of ability to work as per the bank’s objective, causing damage to banking and financial system, disqualification of license to operate business due to misconduct, or if found to be untrustworthy and for skipping the board meeting for three times without any credible grounds.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the government has started the investigation process without providing any credible basis for the probe. Experts have pointed out that the probe into the governor when the state of the economy is deteriorating has sent the wrong message to the public. They see it as an interference with the NRB's autonomy. Although it is common to have differences between the central bank and the finance minister, suspending the governor in the current situation has sent the wrong message, says Chiranjeevi Nepal, a former governor himself. Such differences occur elsewhere.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">"As the government is the super regulator, it can also investigate the regulatory body," says the former governor of Nepal, adding, “But the decision to investigate the role of the governor during such crisis has cast down the morale of the society.”</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Since the objectives of the central bank and the government contradict with each other in some points, the differences between the finance minister and the governor should be taken as normal, says Nepal.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">According to him, the Finance Ministry aims to spend as much money as possible to achieve economic growth but the central bank has to control the spending to avoid inflation and also needs to keep the foreign exchange reserves in balance.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">He added that the government had interfered in the central bank’s autonomy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Another former governor, Dipendra Bahadur Chhetri, also admits that the Ministry of Finance has started interfering in the banking system. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari, who joined NRB as an assistant officer, retired as a deputy governor. He became the governor upon the recommendation of the then Finance Minister Yuvaraj Khatiwada around two years ago.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari has been praised for bringing the monetary policy to revive the Covid-affected economy soon after he became governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, the conflict erupted after Finance Minister Janardan Sharma instructed the central bank to postpone the issuance of monetary policy.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Recently, there was a dispute between the finance minister and the governor over the banks’ interest rate. The Finance Minister was infuriated with the governor after the finance minister’s instruction to release illegal properties came out in the media. It resulted in the suspension of the governor.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14820', 'image' => '20220410095006_fin min sharma.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 21:49:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 6 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15077', 'article_category_id' => '268', 'title' => 'A Tale of Success: Nepali Beekeeper Exporting Honey to Japan and China', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Prashant Khadka</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Mahalakshmi Shrestha, who started producing honey for the domestic market of Nepal about 27 years ago, is now exporting the product to Japan. Her products 'TBS Pure Honey' and 'KASTI Himalayan Honey' are now exported to Japan, China and other countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">About 10 percent of the 12 tons of honey Shrestha produces annually at her company named ‘Beekeeping Shop’ is exported to Japan and China. Nepali honey is in good demand even in European countries as the product is considered better in quality as compared to foreign products. However, she says that the European Union (EU) did not include Nepal in the list of third countries for importing honey, because of its flaw in implementing the National Residue Monitoring Plan (NRMP). That is the reason Shrestha says she could not export her honey to European countries.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha’s company is producing honey by rearing bees in 80 hives in Chitwan and Dang. Besides, the company is working with beekeepers of Kailali, Pyuthan, Dang, Bardiya and other districts to check the quality and send it to the market with branding. Honey is sold in Nepal from her own Beekeeping Shop, online shop Daraz and Salesberry department store. Shrestha said that her Beekeeping Shop itself is looking after the foreign exports.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha said that organic honey in her company is made by bees that suck the flowers of plants like Indian butter tree, mustard, lychee and buckwheat. The price of honey of both the brands ranges from Rs 900 to Rs 1,200 per kg depending on the quality. Shrestha said, “I started my business with a small investment of around Rs 100,000. I continued to work hard even though the income was not good. But gradually, customers started frequenting after tasting the honey and the market size increased along with the profit as well.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha expressed that the practice of eating honey in urban areas of Nepal was not developed when she planned to open the Beekeeping Shop. She said, “My research shows that few people used to buy and eat foreign brands of honey.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A student of botany, she was conducting research on the quality of Nepali honey and modern beekeeping in the SNV project run with the help of the Dutch government at that time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She said that she started working about 27 years ago after seeing good potential of commercial beekeeping in Nepal following the same research. At present, 35 people including 30 beekeepers and 5 workers are employed in the business. She estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of the total beekeeping potential has been achieved in Nepal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shrestha recalled, “When I started the Beekeeping Shop at Man Bhawan in Lalitpur, my family, friends and relatives tried to discourage me saying that it didn’t suit me doing such work, being a bachelor's degree holder in botany. But I did not give up. I didn't start this job because I couldn't get a job. I chose to do this work of my free will and continued to work hard in the same direction, while ensuring the quality of the product, and it made me a successful woman entrepreneur today.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14819', 'image' => '20220410070241_tbs-kasti-2_orig.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 19:01:54', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 7 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15076', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Supply Chain of Chemical Fertilizer Likely to Further Worsen', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: It is speculated that this year's winter crop will be affected as the companies that have been awarded contracts to import subsidized chemical fertilizers will not be able to deliver the fertilizers on time.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The four companies, Silk Market Pvt Ltd, Zen Trade, JS Trade Company and Indian Potash Limited, had signed separate contracts with the state-owned Agriculture Inputs Company Limited and the Salt Trading Corporation for the import of chemical fertilizers. But they failed to import the fertilizers even after the deadline of the contract period.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Ashok Kumar Khadka, information officer of the Agriculture Inputs Company says that there is only a slim possibility for the companies to bring fertilizer on time. He said, “If this situation continues, the chances of fertilizer coming are low in future as well.” He stated that the failure of the companies to import fertilizer was due to the Covid-19 pandemic and China's new export policy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Farmers are continuously facing the problem of not getting chemical fertilizer every year during the farming season. There are indications that the circumstances will repeat this year as well.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Kumar Rajbhandari, spokesperson of the Salt Trading Corporation, Indian Potash Limited had signed a contract with the corporation last December for importing 25,000 metric tons of DAP and 75,000 tons of urea. It is a state-owned company of India. It supplied only 25,000 tons of DAP within the deadline. As for the remaining 75,000 tons of urea, it is yet to be decided whether the company is going to deliver the consignment or not.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The other three companies that signed contracts with the Agriculture Inputs Company have not been able to import chemical fertilizers even a month after their contract expired. A Nepali company called Silk Market had signed an agreement with Agriculture Inputs Company to import 60,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP, but the deadline has already expired. Similarly, Jane Trade had entered into two separate agreements with Agriculture Inputs Company for importing 25,000 tons of urea and 5,000 tons of DAP. Another company, JS Trade, had agreed to import 25,000 tons of DAP with the Agriculture Inputs Company. The period for all these contracts have already expired, but, there are no signs for the import of chemical fertilizers.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Information Officer Khadka of the Agriculture Inputs Company, despite the expiration of the deadline for importing the chemical fertilizers, none of the companies have said they are not able to supply the fertilizers. He said that they are confident that they will bring the fertilizers soon. At present, the Agriculture Inputs Company has a stock of 500 tons of urea, 20,000 tons of DAP and 7,500 tons of potassium. Meanwhile, the Salt Trading Corporation has no fertilizers in reserve.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Spokesperson for Salt Trading, Rajbhandari said that due to the ongoing fluctuations in the global market, there may be shortage of chemical fertilizers in the coming days. He estimates that the problem may be due to the continuous rise in the price of fertilizers in the world market. According to Rajbhandari, the price of chemical fertilizer has gone up from 455 USD per ton to 1100 USD per ton.</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14818', 'image' => '20220410050258_Fertilizer.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 17:02:22', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => null, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 8 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15075', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Suspension of Central Bank’s Governor has Weakened NRB during Crisis: Experts ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 10: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the regulatory body of the financial sector, plays an important role in uplifting the economy. The central bank is the institution that can get the troubled economy back on track. The monetary policy brought by the central bank every year has a great impact on the stability and progress of the national economy. The financial sector and the economy are closely linked. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Due to various reasons, the country's economy has entered a critical situation. The economy, which was recovering from the effects of coronavirus, has been hit by liquidity crisis, inflation, energy shortage and declining foreign exchange reserves. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The governor of the central bank advises the government on policy interventions to prevent the economic crisis from deepening and to bail out the troubled economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In this sense, the country’s economy needs a governor at all times. Meanwhile, the government seems to have weakened the NRB by suspending Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari during such critical time. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Experts say that this will affect the main task of revitalizing the economy. They are of the view that the government has made a blunder by suspending the governor. They noted that the suspension of the governor was not appropriate, even during normal circumstances. There is no concrete reason to suspend the governor, they say. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The dispute between Finance Minister Janardan Sharma and Governor Adhikari could have been resolved through discussions. Experts say that there is weaknesses on both sides. Even though it could be resolved through discussions, they say that the situation was complicated by political bias. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A cabinet meeting held on Thursday has formed a committee to investigate various allegations against Governor Adhikari due to which he has been automatically suspended. The government made the decision public on Friday, prompting reactions from different perspectives. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Former finance secretary and economist Rameshwar Khanal says that the government has tried to weaken the NRB when the economy was in crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The economy has been in a critical situation since last July. Since then, NRB has been working on various issues for its improvement. In particular, NRB tightened imports to curb declining foreign exchange reserves. Apart from this, the regulatory body has also made various other policy arrangements in the meantime. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Despite this, the economy has entered a phase of crisis. In such a situation, NRB’s role is even more crucial. The central bank may have to make important decisions at any time. However, economist Khanal says that the government’s decision has closed the door for the central bank to take vital decisions. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"The government has suspended governor Adhikari and assigned deputy governor Neelam Dhungana as officiating governor,” said Khanal, “However, the acting governor's jurisdiction may be limited. No bold decisions can be made. Also, there is no guarantee that the officiating governor’s orders will be carried out. Thus, the NRB is weakened in terms of policy when the economy is in crisis.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He added that the government's move would have a negative impact on the overall economy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Since there is no chief executive officer at the central bank, it will create a negative impact. Financial services could be affected,” he said, adding, “At the same time, we can lose our reputation in the international arena if there are shortcomings in foreign exchange trading.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of Nabil Bank Upendra Poudel said that there was no good coordination between the Ministry of Finance and NRB during the crisis. “I don't want to comment on what happened,” he said, “However, the economy is in crisis right now. At this time, everyone should coordinate with each other. Nevertheless, there is a lack of coordination between the two government bodies.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to Bhuvan Dahal, former president of the Nepal Bankers' Association, it is wrong to suspend Governor Adhikari. He says this has really weakened NRB. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> “The government's move to weaken the NRB will have a negative impact on the economy and the financial sector. The current situation is not normal as before, the economy is in crisis. There are also problems in the banking sector including the liquidity crisis. At this point, the suspension of the governor could have unpleasant consequences,” said Dahal.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He said that the entire banking and financial sector is concerned over the incident. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“The banks have a history of CEOs facing injustice on issues related to credit flow and recovery. Now the governor of NRB has been treated unfairly,” he said. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“It is normal to have difference of opinion between the finance ministry and the central bank. This also happens abroad but not to this level. The issue should have been resolved through discussion. However, the government has done injustice by suspending an honest governor,” he added. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Likewise, president of Nepal Financial Institutions Association, Saroj Kaji Tuladhar said that the incident will have a psychological impact on the financial sector. He said that, in particular, it will affect financial stability. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Similarly, chairman of the Microfinance Bankers Association, Prakash Raj Sharma, said that the development of the financial sector and services would be affected due to this incident. Stating that it will also have an impact on the recovery of the troubled economy, he said that the financial sector would not support this decision of the government under any circumstances. </span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14817', 'image' => '20220410035208_NRBnew.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 15:51:30', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 9 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15074', 'article_category_id' => '275', 'title' => 'Foreign Employment Office to Issue Institutional Labour Permits through Online System', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 10: The Foreign Employment Office, Kathmandu has decided to issue institutional labour permits for foreign employment only through online system. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Ramesh Aryal, chief of the Tahachal-based Foreign Employment Office, informed that such permits will be issued only through online system from April 15 onwards. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been providing services for renewal of labour permits as well as issuing institutional and personal labour permits. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Institutional labour permits are issued to aspiring migrant workers through manpower companies or their representatives. From now on, the manpower companies do not need to send their representatives personally to the Foreign Employment Office to acquire permits.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The office has been renewing labour permits through online system since the last two months. More than 1000 service seekers have been benefitting from this new provision each day ever since the online system was launched. They have been able to renew their labour permits without visiting the office in person. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has started online service for issuing labour permits to make the process faceless, paperless and cashless.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:18px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Labour Minister Krishna Kumar Shrestha informed that the ministry has initiated online process for issuing labour permits to facilitate the aspiring migrant workers.</span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14816', 'image' => '20220410020648_20211215023334_20200315123851_1111.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 14:06:07', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 10 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15073', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Pathway to Camp II of Everest Opened ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: The pathway to Camp II of Mt Everest has been opened for the spring season. A team of icefall doctors, tasked with building the pathway to the world's highest peak, Mt Everest, has cleared the route from the base camp to the Camp II. According to the Mount Everest Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), six icefall doctors are currently working on installing signals, stairs, and ropes. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The climbers have now already left for Camp II after the pathway was cleared by the icefall doctors, said SPCC vice-president Lama Kaji Sherpa. In order to acclimatize, the climbers have to go from the base camp to the camp II and return. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Sherpa said that 15 stairs have been used from the base camp to the Camp II this time. Earlier, 32 were used in 2018, but only 20 in 2019 BS. The pathway to Camp II is also used to climb Lhotse and Nuptse mountains. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">With the onset of the tourist season, the number of foreign tourists visiting Khumbu in the Everest region has increased. Khum Prasad Poudal, an employee of the Lukla branch of the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said that the flights to the Tenzing Hillary Airport in Lukla have increased. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif""> Up to 45 flights by helicopters and 35 flights by different airlines is taking place daily in Lukla these days. He said that as many as 266 tourists arrive in Khumbu by 14 aircraft and 225 tourists via 45 helicopter on Friday. -- RSS </span></span></span><br /> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14815', 'image' => '20220410115017_Camp2_01.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 11:49:35', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 11 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15072', 'article_category_id' => '239', 'title' => 'Tourism in Nepal Returning back to Normalcy ', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => ' April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">April 10: Tourism industry, one of the mainstays of Nepal's economy, is gradually returning to normalcy after being battered by COVID-19 pandemic for nearly two years. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">This spring season witnessed considerable number of foreign tourists arriving in Nepal. A total of 42,006 tourists arrived here from air route in March alone. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Last year, during the same period, 14,977 foreign tourists had visited Nepal. According to the statistics of the Department of Tourism, Nepal has welcomed 78,747 foreign tourists since January this year till March end. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The government has formed a Tourism Revival Steering Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation which is mandated to undertake initiatives for the revival of the tourism industry by exploring new possibilities, identifying new avenues, promoting the tourism industry and creating enabling investment environment in the tourism sector among others. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Towards this end, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has been organizing Travel Marts in all seven provinces. </span></span></span><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The Fewa Festival is going to be held from April 13-14. A team of foreign chefs led by Master Chef UK contest winner Santosh Shah will reach various destinations for 10 days and participate in promotional events with special focus on culinary tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Mahesh Phuyal, general-manager of Ramada Encore, a 4-star hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu said that Ramada had 70 per cent occupancy of late. Mostly, American, India and European tourists book the 90-room hotel, shared Phuyal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">The inflow of foreign tourists has excited tourism entrepreneurs in Pokhara, one of the popular tourist destinations in the country. Bharatra Parajuli, a local entrepreneur, said that the tourism entrepreneurs like him were upbeat due to increasing number of tourism activities in Pokhara. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He said that development and promotion of adventurous tourism destinations in and around Pokhara, famed for lakes and natural landscapes, has helped boost the country's tourism. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Similarly, Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN)'s Acting President Binayak Shah shared that the hotels in Pokhara were receiving many inquiries lately. He opined that tourism was gradually reviving in Nepal after two years of pandemic-induced crisis. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Likewise, Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN)'s former vice-president Nilhari Bastola suggested that in order to revive tourism in Nepal, the government of Nepal needs to spread the message that Nepal is ready and open for tourist and this could be done through foreign ambassadors and consuls stationed in Nepal. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">He further recommended the government to devise attractive packages such as free visa for a month among others to bolster the influx of foreign tourists. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">NTB's CEO Dr Dhananjay Regmi informed that the number of tourists from India and Bangladesh had increased significantly as the board had conducted targeted promotional events in these countries. </span><br /> <span style="font-family:"Arial Unicode MS","sans-serif"">Echoing with Shah, Regmi said that tourism in Nepal which was plagued by COVID-19 was slowly clawing back to normalcy. He called for the need to facilitate Indian tourists arriving in Nepal via road ways through various border points. -- RSS </span></span></span></p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-10', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14814', 'image' => '20220410081846_himalaya-trekkers.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-10 08:17:31', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 12 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15071', 'article_category_id' => '267', 'title' => 'Government Suspends NRB Governor Adhikari', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank.', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">April 9: The government has suspended Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari accusing him of failing to accomplish his responsibilities as the governor of the central bank. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">After repeated calls for bailing out the economy from crisis, the Ministry of Finance on Friday handed over the suspension letter to Governor Adhikari.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">The ministry has assigned the responsibility of Officiating Governor to Deputy Governor Neelam Dhungana. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A meeting of the Council of Ministers on Thursday (April 7) had decided to investigative into the alleged role of Governor Adhikari in leaking sensitive information of NRB. The Cabinet meeting has formed a committee under the coordination of former Supreme Court Justice Purushottam Bhandari to investigate the matter. The committee has been asked to submit its report within a month.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">A source at the finance ministry said that Governor Adhikari was suspended so that he would not be able to destroy evidences. If he emerges clean after the investigation, Adhikari will reassume his duties as NRB governor. However, if he is found guilty the prospect of Adhikari returning back to the top job will effectively come to an end.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Adhikari was appointed as the governor of NRB by the then government led by KP Sharma Oli. He was praised for adopting a private sector-friendly policy to uplift the economy battered by Covid-19. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">However, after the formation of the new government, it was revealed that he did not enjoy good relation with incumbent Finance Minister Janardan Sharma. Both Sharma and Adhikari had publicly denied their relation had soured.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">During a programme on Friday, Finance Minister Sharma had accused Adhikari, without mentioning his name, of being involved in leaking vital information to the media.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">While Finance Minister dismissed rumors that the country’s economy was in crisis as mentioned in the media, Governor Adhikari maintained that the country was following the footsteps of Sri Lanka.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-09', 'modified' => '2022-04-10', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14813', 'image' => '20220409103209_1649428919.governer (1).jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-09 10:31:23', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 13 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15070', 'article_category_id' => '274', 'title' => 'Nepal’s Economy Heading Towards Red Zone: Expert', 'sub_title' => 'Experts say Delayed Action of Government caused Current Economic Crisis', 'summary' => 'April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. ', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Milan Bishwakarma</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">April 8: The country’s economy, which was recovering after the Covid-19 pandemic, has once again plunged into crisis. The situation has worsened when the economy battered by the impact of Covid-19 for 2 years was gradually clawing back to normalcy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The economy has been pushed to the brink due to various factors including liquidity crunch in the banking system, inflation, energy scarcity, declining foreign exchange reserves among others.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">There were ominous signs since the beginning of the current fiscal year that the economy would undergo stress. The Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation Report published by Nepal Rastra Bank every month had indicated that the economy was on the verge of crisis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">The Balance of Payments (BoP) was in deficit while the foreign exchange reserves were declining since mid-July. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Besides, trade deficit was increasing and remittance inflow was declining. Banks were struggling to manage investible capital since the start of the current fiscal year. Experts say that the economy is already in crisis because the concerned authorities did not take proper measures to address those problems in time. They argue that the economy has been further troubled by the energy crisis and hike in fuel prices of late. They suggested that the government must take measures to ensure that the foreign exchange reserves get replenished. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Foreign exchange reserves are vital indicator of the economy. The economic situation depends on the volume of foreign exchange reserves. Foreign currency is needed for importing goods and services. It is not possible to import goods and services in lack of foreign exchange reserves. Lately, the economy is in crisis mainly because of the decline in foreign exchange reserves.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Economist Dr Chandra Mani Adhikari suggests that the government must take immediate steps to effectively mobilize the foreign exchange reserves to resolve the current crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The main crisis faced by the economy at present is the declining foreign exchange reserves,” says Adhikari, adding, “It affects the overall economy. But the government has done nothing to attract foreign currency but has only kept a stock of the currency.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He suggested the government adopt a policy to attract foreign investment and promote exports and tourism as well as encourage remittance inflow that in turn will earn foreign currency.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">According to Adhikari, the government must immediately announce a promotional package to bring the remittance into the country through formal channels.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Remittance is a good source of earning foreign currency. However, inflow of remittance has declined in recent period. It is said that the remittance is sent through informal channels. Therefore, the government must encourage to bring remittance through formal channels,” he added.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He is of the view that foreign currency can be earned if the expenditure of the projects run with foreign aid is increased.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“Nepal’s economy was in grey zone but it has already entered the yellow zone now and will drift towards the red zone if immediate measures are not taken,” said Adhikari.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Stakeholders of the private sector have expressed their willingness to help resolve the current crisis. They say that they are ready to seek a solution in collaboration with the government.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">President of the Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FNCCI) Shekhar Golchha says that the private sector is ready to go for any extent to help the government resolve this crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“This is the time of crisis. We won’t consider profit and loss during such times. We are ready to rise above our business and cooperate with the government,” said Golchha, adding, “But the government must take the private sector in confidence, which is yet to happen.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the government has held discussion with the private sector in this regard but hasn’t taken any policy-level decision.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">Golchha says that the latest move of the government is not helpful in solving the crisis.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“The government has not taken adequate measures to resolve the problem. It has just warded off immediate crisis. It is necessary to involve the private sector to seek a solution to the problem,” added Golchha.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">He said that problems have surfaced due to the measures taken by the government to discourage imports all of a sudden.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:20px"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif"">“It was necessary to take such steps considering the current situation. But it has created additional problems. It is time to rethink if this is a long-term solution or not.”</span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-11', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14812', 'image' => '20220408055208_economic crisis.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 17:51:11', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ), (int) 14 => array( 'Article' => array( 'id' => '15069', 'article_category_id' => '272', 'title' => 'Government Preparing to Monitor Cooperatives by Hiring CAs and RAs', 'sub_title' => '', 'summary' => 'April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs).', 'content' => '<p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">April 8: The government will now monitor savings and credit cooperatives through chartered accountants (CAs) and registered auditors (RAs). As the financial risk of cooperatives is increasing, the federal government is preparing to tighten the monitoring of cooperatives by hiring more manpower under contract basis.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Rudra Prasad Pandit, registrar of the Department of Cooperatives said, “The department does not have efficient and sufficient manpower to monitor the cooperatives. We will tighten the monitoring even by hiring CAs and RAs on a contract basis.” Pandit further said that action would be taken based on the issues surfacing after monitoring.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Although the posts of CA and data analyst have been arranged within the department for monitoring cooperatives, the posts have not been filled yet. Therefore, the department has put forward a plan to get CAs and RAs to work on contract basis. The department informed that a budget for this plan has been demanded from the Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation. If the budget is not provided, then the department will manage it from internal resources.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">According to the provisions of the constitution, the rights from registration to regulation of cooperatives have reached to the local level. On the basis of the scope of work of the organization, all three levels of governments can regulate the registration of cooperatives. However, the cooperatives have not been regulated due to lack of sufficient manpower at the state and local levels.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">There is a provision that the federal government can also monitor the cooperatives dealing with transactions more than Rs 500 million. Accordingly, the big cooperatives will be monitored regularly in collaboration with the state and local governments, said Registrar Pandit. </span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Out of 29,886 cooperatives across the country, only 125 are under the federal government. Similarly, there are 6002 under the state government and 23759 under the local government.</span></span></span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri,"sans-serif""><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Cooperatives come second in terms of financial transaction after commercial banks. Currently, cooperatives across the country have mobilized more than Rs 1 trillion. Due to the lack of effective regulation by the government, some cooperatives have been mobilizing the money of the general savers indiscriminately. Institutions have become problematic when such operators embezzle money. From Oriental to civil cooperatives, more than 100 of them have been in trouble and billions of public deposits have not been returned.</span></span></span></span></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> ', 'published' => true, 'created' => '2022-04-08', 'modified' => '2022-04-27', 'keywords' => '', 'description' => '', 'sortorder' => '14811', 'image' => '20220408041436_DepartmentofCooperative__20200922125726.jpg', 'article_date' => '2022-04-08 16:13:52', 'homepage' => false, 'breaking_news' => false, 'main_news' => true, 'in_scroller' => false, 'user_id' => '34' ) ) ) $current_user = null $logged_in = false $xml = falsesimplexml_load_file - [internal], line ?? include - APP/View/Elements/side_bar.ctp, line 133 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::_renderElement() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 1224 View::element() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 418 include - APP/View/Articles/index.ctp, line 157 View::_evaluate() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 971 View::_render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 933 View::render() - CORE/Cake/View/View.php, line 473 Controller::render() - CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php, line 968 Dispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 200 Dispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php, line 167 [main] - APP/webroot/index.php, line 117
| Currency | Unit |
Buy | Sell |
| U.S. Dollar | 1 | 121.23 | 121.83 |
| European Euro | 1 | 131.65 | 132.31 |
| UK Pound Sterling | 1 | 142.47 | 143.18 |
| Swiss Franc | 1 | 124.29 | 124.90 |
| Australian Dollar | 1 | 71.69 | 72.05 |
| Canadian Dollar | 1 | 83.90 | 84.32 |
| Japanese Yen | 10 | 10.94 | 11.00 |
| Chinese Yuan | 1 | 17.17 | 17.26 |
| Saudi Arabian Riyal | 1 | 32.27 | 32.43 |
| UAE Dirham | 1 | 33.01 | 33.17 |
| Malaysian Ringgit | 1 | 27.36 | 27.50 |
| South Korean Won | 100 | 9.77 | 9.82 |
Update: 2020-03-25 | Source: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB)
| Fine Gold | 1 tola | 77000.00 |
| Tejabi Gold | 1 tola | 76700.00 |
| Silver | 1 tola | 720.00 |
Update : 2020-03-25
Source: Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers' Association
| Petrol | 1 Liter | 106.00 |
| Diesel | 1 Liter | 95.00 |
| Kerosene | 1 Liter | 95.00 |
| LP Gas | 1 Cylinder | 1375.00 |
Update : 2020-03-25
