KATHMANDU: Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle has said that the budget for the fiscal year 2083/84 is not overly ambitious and remains within a realistic fiscal framework.
Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry of Finance on Sunday, Wagle said the budget size should be viewed in relation to the country’s projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP), arguing that it is relatively modest rather than excessively large.
“In previous years, discussions after the budget announcement often focused on whether implementation would be possible even if the budget was good. This time, that situation does not exist. The budget is not ambitious and remains within the desired limits,” he said.
According to the finance minister, the proposed budget amounts to only 28.5 percent of Nepal’s projected GDP for the upcoming fiscal year.
Wagle noted that he has been involved in Nepal’s budget-making process since 2014 and said budget sizes began expanding significantly after the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake.
“Before the earthquake, Nepal’s budget generally ranged between 25 and 29 percent of GDP, while actual expenditure stood at around 22 to 25 percent. After the earthquake, the size of the budget increased, and in some years it reached as high as 37 percent of GDP,” he said.
The government has unveiled a budget of Rs 2.124 trillion for the fiscal year 2083/84.
Wagle maintained that the current budget has been designed with fiscal discipline in mind and is aligned with the country’s economic capacity and implementation potential.
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