July 26: The Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) has expressed dissatisfaction with the monetary policy issued by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) for the current fiscal year. Issuing a statement on Tuesday, HAN expressed dissatisfaction stating that the monetary policy could not address the problems of the hotel and tourism sector.

Announcing its views on the monetary policy on Tuesday, HAN said that it was enthusiastic about the new policy because it did not have any new initiatives to uplift the hotel and tourism industry which was hit hard by the recession in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

HAN complained that although the businessmen have demanded measures like re-financing and rescheduling of loans as well as the development of the tourism sector through the provision of low interest rates, the monetary policy has not addressed these issues.

HAN said that the current fiscal year's budget and monetary policy have admitted that the number of tourists and economic activities have increased but the capacity of the hotels, which is constantly being added, is under-utilized with less than one-third occupancy.

As a result, the hotel industry is in loss and unable to pay regular interest to the banks, it has been mentioned in the statement.

The review of last year's monetary policy had provision of re-financing and rescheduling of the interest to be paid to the banks. However, the hotel and tourism industry operators are now confused because there are no such provisions in the new monetary policy.

According to HAN, the entry of world-class hotel brands in the country is increasing, but the monetary policy is not encouraging enough. HAN argued that it will be difficult to increase the number of tourists this year due to taxes imposed on raw materials including vegetables consumed by customers and tourists and the introduction of luxury tax.