Commission suggests creating investment-friendly environment, reducing production costs

Kathmandu, April 11: The High-level Economic Reforms Recommendation Commission has submitted its report to the government with recommendations to create an investment-friendly environment and reducing manufacturing costs.    

Submitting the report to Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel today, the Commission Chair and former Finance Secretary Rameswar Prasad Khanal said that consumption and investment appear to have declined due to low credit growth, decline in real estate transactions, millions of people’s savings trapped in the cooperative financial system, failure to make some payments on time and problems in recovering commercial loans, and the construction sector becoming crisis-ridden.    

He told RSS that the conclusions of the commission are that policy intervention is needed to improve the demand side immediately. He said that to achieve targeted economic growth it is necessary to create an investment-friendly environment through structural reforms on the supply side as well as reducing the cost of production to create competitiveness.    

Receiving the report, Finance Minister Poudel expressed his belief that the report presented would be useful in solving the problems seen in the country’s economy. He also expressed his commitment to implement it.    

“We are in the process of formulating the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The report has suggested identifying and resolving economic problems. We will study it seriously and implement the suggestions received in a phase-wise,” said Finance Minister Poudel.    
The government had formed the commission under the leadership of former Finance Secretary Khanal to present a report with suggestions on the measures to be taken at the government level to make the country’s economy dynamic. The members of the commission included National Planning Commission member Prakash Kumar Shrestha, Tribhuvan University Economics Central Department Chief Ram Prasad Gyawali, economist Biswas Gauchan, and Policy Research Institute senior researcher Kalpana Khanal. (RSS)