By Our Reporter
The delegation of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) has been meeting one leader after another requesting to save the country’s economy.
In the last few days, they met Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, UML chairman KP Sharma Oli, Maoist Centre chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Finance Minister Janardan Sharma separately and demanded correction in some of the government policies.
A delegation of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) reached the Prime Minister’s Residence, Baluwatar on Monday to apprise Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba of their problems.
In the meeting, the PM had reportedly assured the private sector entrepreneurs that he would take initiatives to solve the problems troubling the economy in recent times.
Speaking at a meeting with a delegation of the FNCCI. PM Deuba said that a solution to the crisis would be sought after discussions with the Ministry of Finance and the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).
According to the FNCCI, the Prime Minister promised the delegation led by its President, Shekhar Golchha, to take the lead in solving the problem by inviting everyone including the private sector representatives.
The meeting with the PM was an event in the series of efforts that the private sector is putting to seek support in scrapping the central bank’s directives on ‘working capital loan’, and bringing down the bank interest rates by maintaining liquidity in the market.
They have been continuously pressing for it and saying that the much-awaited first quarter review of the monetary policy of the current Fiscal Year 2022/23 could not address the existing problems, primarily cancelling the ‘working capital loan’.
Earlier on Sunday, the FNCCI delegation had separately called on top leaders including the Chairman of CPN-UML, KP Sharma Oli and Chairman of CPN (Maoist Centre), Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) and requested to protect the country’s economy saying it was in a vulnerable condition.
The business leaders warned that the targeted revenue could not be collected even after increasing the general expenditure. The private sector is shrinking because of the price increase, which is the highest in seven years, they said.
The guideline related to working capital loans implemented at a time when the private sector’s investment was shrinking, revenue was continuously decreasing and the country’s economy was under pressure, has only added complexities to businesses, said the FNCCI.
The FNCCI also submitted suggestions to Finance Minister Sharma to protect the economy from multi-dimensional risk during about a year since they started to control the market directly and indirectly.
Meanwhile, the Confederation of Banks and Financial Institutions Nepal (CBFIN) has urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to support reforms and upgrading of the Nepali banking sector.
In a discussion with IMF’s Nepal representative Teresa Daban Sanchez on Sunday, CBFIN expressed concerns over the uneasiness in the economy.
In the meantime, a study has shown that inflation will go much higher than the targeted limit.
According to the inflation expectation survey for the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2022/23 published by the Nepal Rastra Bank, it is seen that inflation will increase further.
In the current fiscal year, consumer inflation has been targeted at 7 per cent, but it has reached 8.5 per cent in the first quarter.
The survey was conducted from October 9 to October 15, 2022, among individual respondents from 60 market areas of 57 cities through field interviews.
Most of them answered that the price increase may rise further.
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