November 25: The Government of Nepal and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed an agreement for concessional loan amounting to Rs 13.3 billion (USD 100 million) for implementation of programmes of Public Finance Management and Strengthening Service Delivery.    
Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Pushkar and Asian Development Bank’s Regional Country Director for Nepal Arnaud Cauchois signed the agreement to this effect at the Ministry of Finance on Friday.    
"Public Finance Management and Strengthening Service Delivery are the major priorities of the government. This (concessional loan) would support in the implementation of restructuring public finance as well as in fiscal federalism," Finance Secretary Pushkar said.    
The finance secretary added that the government has been effortful to strengthen public finance management and public service delivery through various reformative measures through the current fiscal year's budget.    
Similarly, ADB’s Regional Director Cauchois expressed his confidence that the loan would assist in making Nepal's financial system sustainable and make the government's periodic programmes more effective.    
He further said that the loan to be obtained from the ADB under this title was linked to Nepal's medium-term and long-term national plan to upgrade Nepal to middle-income country by 2030.    
It is a concessional loan obtained by Nepal for budgetary assistance. The first phase of the Public Finance Management and Strengthening Service Delivery has been implemented.    
The current loan is for the second phase of implementation, it was shared. -- RSS