Lalitpur, July 29: Nepali Congress (NC) President and former Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, said that the government should promote businesspersons and entrepreneurs for investment.
At a programme organized by the party’s Department of Financial Institution Coordination at the party’s central office, Sanepa on Tuesday, party President Deuba reminded that one of the major objectives of the seven-point agreement between NC and ruling CPN (UML) was making the national economy robust.
He recalled that the policy of privatization and liberalization was introduced by the NC-led government in 2048 BS for which, he said, the NC had faced criticism too.
“Girija Prasad Koirala too had to put up with criticism due to introduction of these policies. Still, we are ready to support the private sector to run enterprises and industries. Business is done by businesspersons and industries are run by industrialists. The government’s job is not running industries and trade,” he asserted, pleading utmost support from the government to the private sector.
Although prolonged armed conflict, devastating earthquake in 2015, COVID-pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict had taken toll on Nepal’s economy, the economic foundation laid by the NC-led government since restoration of democracy had helped maintain economic resilience.
The party President appraised the participants about recent notable improvements in the external indicators of national economy, according to which, government’s current account and balance of payment surplus are continuously increasing. Significant improvement is seen in the foreign exchange reserve as well, he added.
Remittance has gone up notably and inflation has been limited to around 4 percent, he mentioned, adding that credit flow to the private sector is upped by 4.6 per cent. He shared that 13.1 per cent increase was recorded in import and export by 77.8 per cent in the last fiscal year compared to corresponding year.
“Although there are signs for economic growth due to the contributions of sectors such as energy, finance and insurance and mining and mineral excavation, more needs to be done to win the confidence of the private sector and general public,” he insisted, calling for more efforts to improve the indexes of real sector of the economy by boosting production, creating jobs, making business activities robust and increasing investment,
Moreover, the NC Chief expressed his concern over the failure of the government to spend large portion of its development budget and pressed for urgent reforms at structural, organizational, procedural and legal fronts and formulation of new legislations for timely spending of capital expenditure.
Due to decrease in interest rate of the banks and financial institutions (BFIs) following the introduction of the Monetary Policy, the large amount of money deposited in the BFIs banks and financial institutions will be expanded into credit flow which, he hoped, would enthuse aspiring entrepreneurs and running business, according to him.
Stating that our dependency on remittance had adversely impacted agriculture and industry sectors, the NC leader urged the government to devise policies that could link remittances for production purpose. He also mentioned the formation of the Cooperatives Authority by the incumbent government, of which NC is the coalition partner, to make cooperative sector more systematic, transparent and credible.
Deuba drew the attention of the government to adopt effective policy to ensure that the depositors duped by fraudulent cooperatives get their money back.
