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

NTB forms task force to explore ways for survival and revival of tourism sector

As an attempt to revive tourism sector, the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has formed a high-level task force on a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model.

Along with NTB CEO Dr. Dhananjaya Regmi, Ambika Shrestha, the Managing Director of Hotel Dwarika, Basanta Mishra the president of Temple tiger Group, Birendra Bahadur Shrestha the Managing Director of Buddha Airlines, former CEO of NTB Prachanda Man Shrestha, Executive Chairman of Yeti Airlines Sonam Sherpa are in the task force.

The taskforce has also included Rajan Pokharel, the Director General of Nepal Civil Aviation Authority and NTB’s former CEO Deepak Raj Joshi in the team.

NTB has said that the taskforce will make plans for the survival and revival of tourism, hotel and civil aviation sector.

Likewise, it will also prepare an integrated strategy with thorough study about the good practices and plans in various parts of the world.

As tourism sector is one of the most crucial sector of income for Nepal, the said task should be conducted sincerely and efficiently.

Although the Covid-19 has led shutdown in the inflow of tourists, with the time passing pre-planned preparations will be beneficial.

Public procurement services resumes

The Public Procurement Monitoring Office (PPMO) has resumed it services for public procurement.

After a technical error occurred at PPMO’s official website between August 8 and 12, services had been halted since August 27 until further notice.

Due to the technical error PPMO had been facing problems in downloading the files that had been uploaded on their website and was not able to upload any files too.

Thus, the procurement processes of government bodies had been affected. Issuing a notice today, PPMO has requested the stakeholders to proceed with their procurement processes and submit the applications that could not be uploaded earlier.

As per the PPMO, files that were submitted between August 8 and 12 had not been downloaded.

Hence, the PPMO has requested the government bodies to resubmit their files and begin the procurement process.

Rs 30 billion of investment in tourism sector at risk in Chitwan

A tentative Rs 30 billion-plus investment made in the hotel and tourism industry in Chitwan district is at risk amid the on going Covid-19 pandemic.

Small and big-scale hotels and restaurants run in the district have remained closed due to prohibitory orders to prevent and control coronavirus infection.

Around 1,250 hotels operated at different places in the district, including Sauraha and other sites are closed for almost six months now.

Bishow Subedi, a tourism sector researcher, said 225 tourist hotels in the district and almost 50 percent of such hotels are in Sauraha.

He further said that there are 29 tourist hotels in Ratnanagar area and 65 in Bharatpur Metropolitan City.

The tourist hotels used to make a transaction of Rs 10.5 million every day in tourist season, while other hotels were also used to create an almost equal amount of transactions.

Hotel entrepreneurs said that their regular income from additional touristic activities, including jeep safari, boat safari and elephant safari, was around three million.

A study shows that 16,000 workers are working in hotels and restaurants in the district and more than 30 billion have been invested in this sector.

Disputed railway contract scrapped over limited number of companies

The contract of the East-West railway has been scrapped citing the limited number of companies involved in it.

The contract announced for Kakarvitta-Inaruwa section of the of railway came under flak and protests alleging that it was intentionally designed to involve a limited number of contractors. Following pressures and protests from people in general, the Rail, Metrorail, Monorail Development Project scrapped the contract.

Earlier, the government had announced a contract of Rs 32 billion in 54 different packages without finalizing the issue of the compensation of the land acquired.

The terms and condition of the contract had been designed in such a way that more than 18 companies could not participate in the project.

Federation calls for waiver of business house rent

The Nepal National Entrepreneurs’ Federation has demanded waiver of house rent to the entrepreneurs hit hard by the restriction and lockdown to stem the transmission of coronavirus.

In a press statement, Federation Chair Naresh Katuwal demanded exemption of the house rent during the period of around six-month-long lockdown as the business and enterprises are on verge of collapse.

“We urge complete waiver of interest of banks and cooperative organizations in the period of lockdown and call for providing loan without collateral at five percent interest rate for the protection of COVID-affected industry and business”, he added.

Although all of the demand of the federation will not be possible for the government to address, some of it which can be done by government’s side should be immediately provided as it will be a great relief for business houses among others.

Tourism industry will take at least five years to revive, say entrepreneurs

The tourism entrepreneurs announced their anticipation that it will take at least another five years to revive Nepal’s tourism industry.  Speaking at a virtual conference organized by the Society of Economic Journalists Nepal (SEJON) on Monday, Prachandaman Shrestha, the former Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Tourism Board, said that the lockdown and Covid-19 itself has made it difficult to bring in tourists. He said that works done by the government, private sector and other agencies should be well publicized in the international market.  Shrestha said though the stimulus package for the tourism sector was introduced in current fiscal year’s monetary policy, it was not effective due to the lack of implementation. It should be noted that Nepal can only attract tourists if we can provide service on the basis of their special interest. Innovation and priority are must to revive the tourism sector.

Daily interpretation: Nepse ends in red as profit booking extends

After trading flat in the first few minutes of Monday’s trading, the benchmark Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index fell over 15 points on Tuesday.

Stocks staged a rebound a couple of times in the afternoon but could not trade above the opening level.

After struggling in the final hour, stocks finally ended firmly lower. Consequently, Nepse finished Monday’ session 12.17 points lower at 1,487.81.

With Monday’s loss, Nepse stretched its losses for a third consecutive session. While recent daily losses are modest compared to August end’s upward rally, some selling pressure is evident in the sessions of late on the back of active profit booking.

In the meantime, activity remains relatively subdued but turnover still stands firmly above par. Over Rs. 2.16 billion worth of shares were traded on the day.

Tree count for Nijgadh International Airport to be completed by mid-December

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) has directed the concerned government agencies to complete the tree count procedure in the proposed site of Nijgadh International Airport by mid-December this year.

A high-level meeting held at the MoCTCA in Singha Durbar on Tuesday decided to complete the tree counting process along with their numbering within next three months by deploying additional manpower at work.

The Divisional Forest office in Bara has been entrusted with the responsibility to carry out the task. A total of 57,350 trees and poles have been already counted in the 1,900 hectares of land of the proposed site of the airport.

This report will play an important role on further construction process of Nijgadh international Airport as this case has came to light quite often and had witnessed a lot of complications.

The government should realize that it is equally important to value the nature and natural value while conducting any development work.

(Compiled and prepared by Nitish Lal Shrestha)

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.