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Govt serious to mobilise internal resources for economy

The government has on Thursday admitted that the country’s bleak investment as well as business climate could mar its target of achieving an 8.5 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the Three-Year Interim Plan (TYIP) from 2009-10 to 2011-12.

In its draft for the Three-Year Interim Plan (TYIP) to be presented at the Nepal Development Forum (NDF) meeting to be held from May 12 to 14, the Ministry of Finance has set an overall gross domestic product growth of 8.5 percent

During an interaction programme with experts and representatives of donor agencies on the issues for the upcoming NDF meeting, Rameshwar Prasad Khanal, Secretary, MoF, said that the government is serious towards addressing industrial woes as well as other economic challenges like alarming inflation rate that is above 14.5 percent.

He also said that the government would fully leverage the notion of public-private partnership (PPP) in order to mobilize the internal resources to the hilt to ensure sustainable economic growth of the country.

Representatives of Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged the government to focus itself more on infrastructure development to expedite the economic growth. They were also of the view that expanding rural financial services could well help in ensuring sound health of the micro-economic situation of the country.

The ADB and IMF officials also remarked that the ongoing global meltdown as well as fragile political scenario of the country could pose grave threat to the GDP target set by the government.

The ADB representatives also asked the government to put robust monitoring mechanism in place while carrying out development activities in line with the PPP concept.

Speaking during the same occasion, Dr Tilak Rawal, microeconomic expert, said that the vital economic agendas should not be subverted by petty political issues. He also ascribed the lackluster economic performance to the lack of strong economic commitment on the part of political parties.

“The rate of capital expenditure in this fiscal year has gone down by 35 percent in comparison to the previous year. And, this could prove inimical to the economy,” he added. nepalnews.com Apr 16 09