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.    
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.

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.    
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.   -- RSS