Views of a Nepali Economist

. Vegetable prices drop in Kathmandu

Thanks to rise in production and end of festivals, price of most of the vegetables has gone down

Maoist affiliated union causes popular Fire and Ice pizza restaurant to shut down

...the management was forced to close down the restaurant after the Maoist affiliated All Nepal Hotel Workers´ Association started a dispute over appointment of a new restaurant manager...members of the association along with its president manhandled some employees and misbehaved with the management

NRB caps Class B‚ C chief executives' salary

The central bank has directed the financial institutions — except class A commercial banks — to determine the remuneration for their CEOs based on the institution’s financial indicators...The central bank has asked the financial institutions to fix the salary of CEO based on the financial institutions’ business size, size of lending and deposits, size of operating profit, return on capital among others in the last three years.

Trade deficit up to Rs 330.34 billion

The total exports is still less than six times (Rs 64.56 billion from total merchandise) the import of Rs 394.90 billion

...the share of India in Nepal’s total trade increased to 66.4 per cent in 2010-11 compared to 59.1 per cent a fiscal year ago

...overall Balance of Payment (BoP) that had remained in deficit till the ten months ended with a ‘surprise’ Rs 2.93 billion surplus against a deficit of Rs 3.63 billion in a fiscal year...current account deficit shrank to Rs 11.91 billion from a deficit of Rs 28.14 billion a year ago...net transfer account registered a growth of 8.9 per cent to Rs 307.86 billion compared to that of a year ago...pension receipts rose by 12.2 per cent to Rs 28.99 billion...workers’ remittances increased by 9.4 per cent to Rs 253.55 billion...FDI of Rs 6.44 billion was recorded compared to the level of Rs 2.85 billion a fiscal year ago...capital transfer increased by 26.5 per cent to Rs 15.91 billion compared to the level of Rs 12.58 billion a fiscal ago...gross foreign exchange reserves increased by a mere 1.2 per cent to Rs 272.10 billion in mid-July from the level of Rs 268.91 billion as at mid-July 2010...Of total reserve, NRB’s reserves augmented by 3.8 per cent to Rs 213.09 billion in mid-July 2011 from a level of Rs 205.37 billion as at mid-July 2010...gross foreign exchange reserves in Us dollar terms increased by 6.2 per cent to $3.84 billion in mid-July...Based on the trend of import during the review year, the current level of reserves is sufficient for financing merchandise imports of 8.4 months and merchandise and service imports of 7.3 months

Ginger farming all the rage among Kailali farmers

As much as 3,000 metric tons of ginger is produced from 500 hectares of land in the VDCs...ginger worth around Rs 100 million was supplied to India from hilly districts in the Far-Western Development Region last year

Rukum farmers reap rich rewards of asparagus farming

...each farmer has...earned Rs 150,000 to Rs 300,000 from the commercial asparagus farming every year

An interview with Surya Nepal's corporate vice president about whether or not their garment factory will repoen

Labels: exports, inflation, Kailali, labor unions, nepal rastra bank, Rukum, surya nepal

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1. Surya Nepal gives reasons for closing the garment factory in Biratnagar

The reasons:

it lost the orders it had on hand.....its buyers from the US and Europe categorically said they will not place orders in future as well

...the company suffered a severe blow mainly after the buyers came to know about ´hostage situation´ in the factory, wherein trade union affiliated with the UCPN (Maoist) locked over two dozen managerial staff for 24 hours without food and water, and rescue carried out by the police

What rattled the company most, according to Jha, was that senior trade union leaders, local political leaders, entrepreneurs, administration and local labor office could do nothing when the factory management requested them to rescue its staffers after the ANTUF-R locked them in the factory.

2. Resource gap of Rs 451b threatens MDGs achievement

...Nepal is likely to miss the targets, particularly related to hunger, employment, gender balance, environment and reproductive health...because the country suffers from a resource gap to the tune of Rs 451.43 billion over the last 5 years of the MDGs period

Targets that Nepal is likely to miss: halving the population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption, proportion of underweight children (aged between 6-59 months) and proportion of stunted children (aged 6-69 months)

Nepal also faces difficulty in achieving targeted survival rate to Grade 5 in primary education, literacy rate for 15-24 years old, proportion of births attended by skilled attendants, universal access to reproductive health, and proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility.

3. Some numbers on Nepal's telecom industry

*telecom services in the country have reached to 46 out of every 100 people
*mobile users account for 40.59 percent, fixed line 2.93 percent and other services 2.52 percent

*from mid-July 2009 to mid-July 2010, telecom operators had added 2.62 million users
*from mid-July 2010 to mid-July 2011, telecom operators added 4.23 million users
*This is an increase of 61 percent

*In 2010-11, Nepal Telecom’s subscribers grew by 23.33 percent
*Ncell’s customers grew by a 90.95 percent
*Ncell is now the market leader in the GSM segment with 43 percent market share
*This is an increment of 10 percent over the year
*NTC's overall market share fell from 61 percent to 51 percent in the last fiscal year

4. Shikhar Shoe is one of the rare business success stories in Nepal

Shikhar Shoe is now all set to scale up its production capacity...With the new technology, Shikhar’s daily production capacity will increase to 5000 units from the existing 1,000

The company has invested over Rs 100 million for the expansion of its manufacturing facility. Currently, Shikhar offers over 400 models—from sports, party wear to casual shoes. It has been selling its products from more than 1,000 outlets in 70 districts.

With Dashain around the corner, Shikhar Shoe is readying itself to launch over 70 new models.

5. Another business success story in Nepal: Poultry Farming.

Growing per capita income and living standards has meant that demand for meat, especially chicken, is growing in Nepal. Suppliers have been struggling to keep up with the demand.

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And Finally, a satire on the banking industry:

Labels: garment, MDG, mobile phones, Ncell, NTC, poultry, Shikhar Shoe, surya nepal