KATHMANDU: Economists today warned Nepal’s economic growth rate in the current fiscal year 2019/20 will not go beyond 7 percent owing to what they said ‘sluggish government expenditure’.
Speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary Finance Committee, economists criticized the government for failing to prioritize projects. Likewise, one of the reasons, they argued, was the lawmakers’ inability to go beyond small-scale projects, which was harming the country’s economy.
Economists, including Prof Dr Biswambher Pyakuryal, Prof Dr Govinda Nepal and others said that the government in the first six months of the current fiscal year has spent only 10 percent of its capital budget, which they argued was simply not sufficient to stimulate the economic growth.
According to them, it would be a wonder if the country achieved a growth of over 8 percent.
It should be noted that the country achieved a growth rate of around 7 percent in the last fiscal year.
The government has revised its economic growth target for 2019-20 to 7.01 percent. It had a projected target of 8.5 percent.
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