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

Nepse down by 26.54 points

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) has gone down by 26.54 points to settle at 1317 points on Monday, the second trading day of the week.

Against the upward trend that continued for two weeks, the benchmark index climbed down by double digits today. However, the index witnessed a significant volume of transactions. A total of 5,846,238 units of shares of 182 companies worth 1 billion 9 million 7 hundred thousand rupees were sold today.

Himalayan Distillery tops the index in a transaction with 209 million, Rs 200,000 followed by Nepal Credit and Commerce Bank with 133 million 2 hundred thousand rupees.

The life insurance sector went down by 154 points while the non-life insurance group by 116 points. All the groups fell in the red zone today.

FMTC to sell essential goods from mobile vans

The Food, Management and Trading Company (FMTC) is planning to sell essential goods such as rice, sugar, pulses and induction stoves. In order to do this, FMTC has planned to buy two compact-sized vans to get around in the city.

NRNA to promote VNY2020 internationally

The Non-Resident Nepalis Association (NRNA) has pledged to promote Visit Nepal Year 2020 through publicity events across the world.

The international coordination committee meeting of the NRNA held in Rupakot of Kaski decided to take initiatives to encourage foreigners to visit Nepal, and disseminate the message about Nepal as the best destination for visitors, NRNA’s President Kumar Panta said.

The NRNA has also decided to collaborate with Nepal’s diplomatic missions to organize different promotional events and partake in different festivals and publicize Nepal in public transport.

Likewise, the meeting decided to organize an NRN Global Expert Conference in October 2020 in partnership with the government and identify the potentials and problems of foreign employment. Furthermore, the meeting also decided to coordinate with the government to establish the labor bank.

NTB’s CEO selection process lingers over trivial issues

The Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) has not yet selected a CEO owing to the postponement of board meetings. The board was supposed to name the CEO on Friday. However, the meeting was postponed as some board members could not make it to the meeting. The meeting scheduled for Sunday was also postponed for Monday.

Today is the last day for sugar mills to clear overdue payments to farmers

The deadline set to sugar mills to settle overdue payments to sugarcane farmers for their crops expires on Tuesday, but there is a tad bit of chance that they will get their money, officials said.

According to the Department of Industry, the mill owners owe the farmers a total of Rs1 billion, out of which they have only paid Rs150 million so far. Six mills — Indu Shankar Sugar Mill, Everest Sugar Mill, Bhageshwor Sugar Mill, Himalayan Sugar Mill, Eastern Sugar Mill, and Reliance Sugar Mill — have settled all outstanding payments. Aggravated sugarcane farmers have slowly decreased the sugarcane acreage after not getting paid for their harvests on time.

Special regulation to big banks

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has initiated the process of special regulation of large banks that can be systematically exposed to risk. For this, the Regulation and Supervision Department of NRB has started a study to prepare the regulatory procedure, said NRB Spokesperson Gunakar Bhatt.

Bhatta said that in this year’s monetary policy, they have mentioned that such banks should be specially regulated. In the recent past, mergers and acquisitions have made a big impact on some banks. Major banks like Global IME, Nabil, NIC Asia, National Commercial Bank have also been regulated like banks like Civil, Century and NB.

NEA requests locals to accept new ways

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has taken it upon themselves to resolve the differences with locals of Gorkha. The locals have been obstruction the construction of a 220kV double circuit Marsyangdi Corridor Electricity Transmission Line.

NEA had planned to build the transmission line along the banks of the Marsyangdi River. However, the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) said that the construction of the transmission line would affect aircraft taking off or landing at the Palungtar airstrip.

NEA’s revised design indicates that 16 towers will be built on 5.6 kilometers between Garambesi of Lamjung to Palungtar of Gorkha. This would mean the transmission line will affect local villages and farmland, which is why locals are protesting.

Nepal-China joint venture to develop hydropower project in eastern Nepal

Investment Board Nepal (IBN) has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a consortium between Power Construction Corporation of China and Nepal’s Hydroelectricity Investment and Development Company Limited to develop the 756 MW Tamor Storage Hydroelectricity Project in eastern Nepal.

The Nepal-China joint venture (JV) company was selected to develop the project during the Nepal Investment Summit held here in March last year. Hydroelectricity Investment and Development Company is Nepal’s state-owned company.

The IBN facilitates large scale domestic and foreign investments in Nepal. IBN officials said they believed the project is one of the most attractive projects available at the moment. The project will cover three districts of eastern Nepal — Taplejung, Terhathum, and Panchthar of Province 1.

Nepal has established cross-border transmission lines with India and is also working to develop a cross-border power line with China.

(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.