Stakeholders call for immediate structural measures for economic revival

Kathmandu, March 10 : Knowledgeable persons have highlighted the need of placing immediate structural reforms to bail out the country's economy from crises.     

At the 'second national economists conference, 2079' organized by National Economic Concern Society in the capital on Friday, the speakers stressed the need of economic restructuring arguing that present working style and modality did not resolve the problems galore.     

Nepali Congress (NC) general-secretary Gagan Thapa said he had never seen such a frustration among the citizens before. "The economy should be seen from a holistic lens rather than what the economic indicators and data explained. How citizens are facing present-day situation was crucial. These day citizens were in a worrying state. I never saw such mass frustration before", the NC general secretary noted.     

The current challenge of the national economy had emerged as a piled-up problems since long, he claimed. "Our economy has seen several problems which we had put aside since ling. These problems are associated to production. Specifically the problem lies in brain drain and consumption of imported goods and services through the remitted money", Thapa said.     

He further said that Nepali politicians had very limited knowledge about economy. "Politicians do not analyze economic dimensions. They only see the promises made before the people. The state resource capacity has a different story but the politicians are tempted to address people's aspirations. So, there is a need to make politicians aware about economy".     

On the occasion, CPN (Unified Socialist) leader Bijaya Poudel said Nepal's economic situation was passing through a troubled time and stressed on increasing domestic production.     

"The plans to boost production has not been effective since long The government and line agencies are not accountable to the targets they set", Poudel commented.     

Likewise, National Planning Commission member Dr Ramkumar Phuyal said Nepal should identify its competence and focus on increasing production through optimum mobilization of resources and means.     

He noted that Nepal should identify the goods of competitive advantaged and place measures to augment production accordingly. "Policy should be adopted to gradually increase production and productivity through mobilization of available resources and means".     

Likewise, he has raised the issue of budget allocation efficiency and implementation capacity seriously.     

Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank Maha Prasad Adhikari said positive impetus were required for revitalizing worsening economic condition of the country. "The COVID-19, Russia-Ukraine war, world energy crisis and price inflation among others have also their impacts on Nepal's economy, he said, adding the external sector of the economy is gradually increasing.     

He also shed light on institutional reforms for improving national economy. "We do have several challenges. We are in need id structural reforms. Our balance of payment is improving. Banks' credit and deposit ratio has reduced. We have less price inflation than other countries with similar economy in the globe", he argued.     

Governor Adhikari further said that the loan flow from banks and financial institutions has not been properly utilized

Outcome would not come as anticipated if the bank loan was not utilized in productive sector, he said. However, the central bank has stressed on the expansion of sectoral loan to increase credit flow in productive sector, the Governor further said.(RSS)