VOL. 05,NO. 13,January 13, 2012 (Poush 29, 2068)

The Global Bank has entered the sixth year of its operation from January. In its five years, the bank provided services to more than 1 lakh and 20 thousand customers. Among them, sixty one thousand people have been using the bank’s debit card service while more than 37 thousand people are enjoying the bank’s mobile banking service, according to the bank.

The Global Bank is providing services to its customers from its 31 branches and 38 ATM counters and is only among the five commercial banks in the country that are allowed to perform government transactions.

The bank has till date collected around NRs 17 billion deposits and has invested more than NRs 14 billion.

High Fall In Automobile Sales

In the month of Mangsir of this fiscal year, automobile sales have gone down heavily. The sales started to decrease from Poush of fiscal year 2067/68; however, the sales improved in Asaar but have again declined since then, according to the Department of Transport Management.

The sales of cars have gone down by 27 percent while the sales of two wheelers have decreased by 35 percent when compared with the same period of previous fiscal year.

In Mangsir last year, 7 thousand and 4 hundred motorcycles were registered at the Department of Transport Management but in this period this year only 3 thousand eight hundred and two motorcycles are registered.

The number of cars registration has gone down from 9 hundred and seventy one to 7 hundred and sixteen.

Krishna Prasad Sharma Appointed New RBB CEO

Krishna Prasad Sharma has been appointed as chief executive officer of the Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB).

The CEO selection five-member committee headed by Energy Minister Balanand Poudel selected Krishna Prasad Sharma as the new CEO following the approval of RBB’s executive board. Sharma is the first CEO of the bank to be appointed through an open competition.

Sharma has been a proficient figure in banking sector for a long time and is considered as one of the most efficient bankers of the country. He had a long career in RBB spanning over 28 years and has been instrumental in implementation of financial sector restructuring program in the bank.

After his appointment, he said he would try to make the banking sector more competent and competitive.

Janata Bank To Issue New Shares

Janata Bank is preparing to float the largest public issue worth NRs 600 million. It is planning to issue 6 million units of shares.

Janata Bank has appointed Citizen Investment Trust (CIT), NMB Capital and Civil Capital as the underwriter and issue manager of its primary issue.

Although the bank is issuing shares at a tough time, due to the faith of common people in our bank, we should be able to sell all the shares of the bank, said Udaya Nepali Shrestha, chairman of the bank.

The bank is running its operations from 16 branches and has collected deposits of NRs 4.4 billion till Ashoj. The bank has also invested the same amount and has earned a profit of more than NRs 13.1 million till then.

Photo Exhibit Marks Lisanevich’s Arrival In Nepal

A photo exhibition was organized at Russian Centre of Science & Culture, Kamalpokhari, Kathmandu, to mark the 60th Anniversary of Boris Lisanevich’s arrival in Nepal. The exhibition was organized from 16th to 30th Dec, 2011 with the theme “Travelling in Nepal.”

Boris is considered the pioneer of hotel industry in Nepal as he helped the growth of tourism in Nepal by opening the country's first international hotel the ‘Royal Hotel’ during the late 50s.

The exhibition was jointly organized by Russian Centre of Science & Culture, Nepal Tourism Board, Himalayan Academy of Travel & Tourism and School of Creative Communications.

The photographs of Russian and Nepali photographers were displayed during the exhibition.

Ambassador Yang Houlan Attends Health Camp

Chinese ambassador to Nepal Yang Houlan attended one day Free Health Camp organized by Arniko Society in Siddhipur Village, Lalitpur District. Dr. Harish, Chairman of Arniko Society, the local party leaders of CPN (UML), NC and UCPN (Maoist), CA member and Ambassador Yang addressed the function. Over 100 local villagers attended the opening ceremony.

According to Chinese Embassy website, ambassador Yang stated in his speech that China and Nepal are good neighbors, good partners and good friends and that the two countries have friendly contacts since a long time ago, and the two countries are always respecting each other, understanding each other and supporting each other. “Arniko Society is the real model of spreading Nepal-China friendship and cooperation of Nepal-China's 56th diplomatic relations,” said the Chinese ambassador.

Dr. Harish stated in his speech that Nepal-China traditional friendship has a long history. China is always helping Nepal in various fields like health, education, culture, hydropower and road. Arniko Society is a friendship organization composed of Nepali experts who have studied in China. Doctors in the health camp all graduated from China.

Bitter Realty

The banks and financial intuitions (BFIs) are still feeling the heat from realty disaster. The number of defaulters from the realty loan has gone up by many folds. BFIs have put around 1000 units of land and housing up for the auction in the second quarter of the running fiscal year. The number of units up for auction normally used to be around a dozen.

BFIs have invested around 120 billion in the realty sector and they are facing problem recovering their loan as well as the interest from their investment.

According to the experts, the situation might still get worse in the upcoming months.

“Banks are to be blamed for their current state as they invested for speculative purposes and now it is hitting them back. The real state of the problem will be seen only around the mid July 2012,” said Sashin Joshi, CEO of NIC bank, at an interaction program organized by Nepal Economic Forum.

So, to ease the current scenario in the banking sector, government is planning to take some steps.

However, the possibility of introducing the asset management company any time soon was denied by Deputy Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari. “To save the system we are even ready to introduce asset management companies but it should be used only as the last option as it will be bail out mechanism for those people who took millions of loan from bank promising to create jobs but didn’t do anything productive for the country and invested in realty sector for their personal good,” he said. “The size of realty is not big in Nepal, there are problems and we may incur losses but the future is not that bad. Any amount of loss is lesser than the lesson we learnt from realty bubble.”

On the other side, to improve the current state, the government is planning to increase the loan limit on the personal loan for the realty transactions, as well as trying to tempt the officials to buy apartments and is also planning to make it possible for even the foreigners to buy property in Nepal.

The full damage made by realty sector in the Nepalese economy is yet to unfold as currently remittances have helped to ease the problem a lot.

By Debesh Adhikari