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

Sugarcane farmers have little hopes of getting paid

If the agreement made with the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies on January 4 were to be implemented, sugarcane farmers should have received by now — more than half of the money that they owe.

With a week remaining until the deadline, farmers will have little hopes of the sugarcane mill owners paying them the amount before January 21. As per the agreement, 80 percent of the dues were supposed to be cleared by January 9 which, however, did not happen. President of Nepal Sugarcane Producers Federation, Kapil Muni Mainali said that they (farmers) are yet to receive Rs 800 million out of more than Rs 1 billion that the sugarcane mills still owe to them.

Vistara to launch Delhi-Kathmandu flight service

Indian airline company, Vistara is launching daily flight service between New Delhi and Kathmandu from February 11. According to the company’s website, the bookings for the flights have opened from Tuesday. The company has said that the round-trip all-inclusive fares for Delhi-Kathmandu-Delhi start at INR 9,999.

Likewise, for the round-trip, all-inclusive fares for Kathmandu-Delhi-Kathmandu start at NPR 16,999. In a statement, the company’s CEO Leslie Thng said they are pleased to launch services to Kathmandu adding that the timing could not have been any better, as Nepal is currently observing its global tourism campaign — Visit Nepal 2020 aiming to bring in 2 million tourists this year.

Vistara, dubbed as India’s only five-star carrier, is an Indian airline company established as a joint venture of Tata Groups and Singapore Airlines.

NT Shareholders Get 45% Dividends

The 12the annual general meeting of Nepal Telecom (NT) held on Tuesday has decided to distribute 45 percent dividends to its shareholders derived from its profits of fiscal year 2018/19.

The NT had made a net profit of Rs. 9.73 billion during the fiscal year 2018/19. According to the company, a total of 92 percent of shareholders attended the annual meeting. The meeting also endorsed the balance sheet, profit-loss and cash-flow account of the company by the end of fiscal year 2018/19.

1,351 suspicious transactions in FY 2018/19

In the fiscal year 2018/2019, the Financial Information Unit (FIU) received a total of 1,351 suspicious transactions. In the previous fiscal year (2017/2018), the FIU had received a total of 887 suspicious transaction reports (STR). An increase in STR indicates that the institutions are involved in suspicious transactions.

45% work completed on the eastern canal

Only 45% of work on the eastern canal of Sikta Irrigation Project has been completed to date despite the construction deadline expired two months ago. The project office had facilitated the contract to build a 53.5-kilometer eastern canal to Kumar Kalika JV on 24 July 2017.

As per the contract, the project had to be completed by November 2019. According to the project office, the eastern canal has been designed to irrigate 9,000 hectares of land. Locals say that the contractor’s performance was satisfactory initially. “Later on, they (contractor) became inactive which eventually affected the project’s work progress.

Aqua Minerals Nepal fined Rs 100,000

Aqua Minerals Nepal has been found to have breached the standards for a bottled water business and the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection has imposed a fine of Rs 100,000 on the company. The “Aqua Hundred” brand of bottled water was being sold without a price tag. Additionally, the company’s product labelling was not in accordance with the format that the government has specified. On top of the fine, the Department has also asked the company to make the necessary adjustments within three working days.

Eight booked for inflicting huge loss to ADBL

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has filed cases against eight persons, including six employees of New Road-based main branch office of Agricultural Development Bank Ltd, for embezzling Rs 44.3 million to use for their personal interest and giving a huge loss to the bank.

Those booked by the anti-graft body on the corruption charges are Dipika Regmi (the assistant teller), Prem Hari Dhungana (the branch manager), Gopal Giri (the chief of loan section), Salil Regmi (the retired loan officer), Maheshwor Marahattha (the loan officer), Taranath Pandey (the cheque clearing officer), Rameshraj Bista (the retired brigadier general of Nepali Army) and Prakash Ghatani (the owner of New Road-based Durga Jewellers).

Chinese firm loses substation contract after being no-show

A Chinese firm, Shenzhen Farad Electric Company, neglected a $16 million contract and deserted the project sites of two new substations at Matatirtha, Kathmandu and Markichok, Thanahu. After a month of absence the plug was pulled on their contract.

Project chief, Tara Pradhan said that they are determining the amount to be seized from the contractors in performance guarantee. Shenzhen Farad received the contract back in December 2017. The high capacity substations are part of a $56 million Marsyangdi-Kathmandu transmission line project that has been set up to bring electricity from the Marsyangdi basin to Kathmandu.

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

Economic Digest is a daily morning email digest, basically relatable summations of the most important business news and happenings from Nepal into easy-to-understand summaries. By realizing that readers are faced with a packed calendar, 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 by creating news summaries in the form of Economic Digest.