KATHMANDU: Economic Digest, a daily morning email digest, is basically a relatable summation of important business news from Nepal into easy-to-understand summaries.

Govt begins keeping records of Nepali migrant workers

The government has started keeping records of Nepali migrant workers leaving for abroad and coming back home from foreign countries. The record-keeping began from Monday in collaboration with the information management system of the Department of Immigration.

Prior to this, the official statistics of the Nepali migrant workers was based on the work permit taken by the migrant workers from the Department of Foreign Employment. With these records keeping in place, now one can get the statistics of the Nepali migrant workers working abroad. Over 1,000 youths take work permits for foreign employment on a daily basis according to the Department of Foreign Employment.

NOC hikes LPG price by Rs 25 per cylinder

Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has reduced the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene by Rs one per liter. Now, petrol has been priced Rs 110 per liter and diesel and kerosene Rs 99 per liter.

However, the state-owned oil monopoly hiked the price of LPG by Rs 25 per cylinder. Now, a cylinder of cooking gas will cost Rs 1,375 per cylinder.

The new rates have been effective from Monday midnight. The price of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) has remained unchanged, NOC stated.

Over 300 cargo trucks stranded on Nepal-China border

Over 300 cargo trucks have been stranded on the Nepal-China border due to the transportation halt to tackle coronavirus. These containers have been halted at Kerung and Khasa of China, according to the Nepal Trans Himalayan Border Commerce Association.

The goods worth over Rs 3 billion are in the cargo trucks, said Bachchu Paudel, Chairman of the Association. In order to tackle the coronavirus, the Nepal government has closed Tatopani and Rasuwa checkpoints for 15 days (January 29 to February 13).

Nepal imports electrical goods, readymade clothes, dolls, foot wares among others from China. However, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies has informed that coronavirus has not impacted much on the business in Nepal.

Complaints galore as SA spends only 3% budget in 6 months

Speakers at a program raised concern over the State Assembly’s weak role in creating necessary pressure on the Karnali State government regarding development and livelihood.

At an interaction organized to mark the completion of two years of the establishment of State Assembly, speakers said state government’s failure to perform to live up people’s aspiration has made the general public frustrated.

The state assembly secretariat organized an interaction ‘federalism and state assembly’ on Monday to mark the second year of the establishment of the state assembly. Most of the speakers pointed out the state assembly’s weak oversight on the performance of the state government.

Responding to the queries and concerns on the occasion, Karnali State Assembly Speaker Raj Bahadur Shahi said this event has provided him a chance to know people’s expectations from the state assembly. He pledged to address public expectations and grievances within the ambit of the constitution. He also recalled the vigilance of the state assembly on the government’s performance.

NIBL RFD scheme

Nepal Investment Bank Ltd (NIBL) is making an offer of 9.25 percent interest on Recurring Fixed Deposit (RFD), which target the facilitation of savings habit in the society and customers also reap the benefits of higher interest rate with a minimum recurring deposit amount of Rs 333 for a minimum tenure of 33 months.

Furthermore, NIBL had launched a green initiative product Green Double Fixed Deposit (GDFD). The collected deposits from this product are invested in sustainable, environment-friendly green projects. The deposits received via GDFD are invested in green projects via Eco-Loan.

NRB says payments made via social media needs to be legal

Dismissing reports that it was planning to ban advertising on social media, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) said the payment should be made via legal channels.

The country’s central bank had last week issued a notice warning social media platform users of legal action if they received payments for services illegally via social media. NRB Director Bam Bahadur Mishra clarified that anyone wishing to advertise on social media is free to do that.

“However, the payment has to be made via legal channels,” he said. According to him, the central bank should approve the transactions if it involves foreign currency adding that the NRB would soon issue a directive to regularize social media advertising.

VNY 2020 suffers setbacks but can be salvaged, say tourism entrepreneurs

Tourism campaign should look further than China and India if it desires to attract enough tourists to meet the 2 million arrivals target of VNY 2020.

Former chief of the Nepal Tourism Board, Deepak Raj Joshi agrees. “We need to move on,” Joshi has said, adding, “Instead of China, we should now focus on wooing tourists from India, Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Europe to get closer to our targets.”

Poultry specific market inspection from today

The government announced that it will commence monitoring the market targeting different poultry farms and hatcheries in the country from Tuesday.

The last few weeks have seen a rise in the price of Chicken in the domestic market. Chicken prices were at Rs 280 per kg just a month ago. Recently, the prices have reached Rs 400 per kg. The Director-General of the Department of Commerce, Supply and Consumer Protection, Netra Prasad Subedi, said that the main reason for the market inspection is due to the unnatural rise of the price of chicken.

In December, hatcheries had stopped production of chicks for two weeks, allegedly even destroying eggs that were ready to hatch. This move was made to force the government to raise the price of chicken given lower supply.

Ministries asked to submit details of projects

The National Planning Commission (NPC) has requested all ministries to hand in the details of ongoing projects and new projects to be incorporated in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2020-21 within February 27.

NPC has sought project details for the approaching fiscal budget based on the provision of Financial Procedure and Fiscal Accountability Act, 2019.

Furthermore, the legislation mentioned that only projects approved and authenticated by NPC and included in the project bank will be included in the budget. Based on the standards set by NPC, projects to be integrated into the project bank will have to pass three different stages, which are project identification, project appraisal, and project selection and prioritization.

(Compiled and prepared by Swastik Aryal, Akash Shrestha, Nitish Lal Shrestha, Diana Zulkifli)

Nepal Economic Digest is a daily morning email digest, basically relatable summations of the most important business news, happenings from Nepal into easy-to-understand summaries. The Institute for Strategic and Socio-Economic Research (ISSR), Nepal’s independent think tank, and Khabarhub — Nepal popular news portal — have joined hands to disseminate news from Nepal in the form of Economic Digest.