The Bureau, which released preliminary estimates on national accounts for 2010/11 on Wednesday, announced that country’s gross domestic product (GDP) at constant prices will expand by just 3.47 percent. [break]
The projection is less by more than 1.5 percentage points than what the government had targeted to achieve.
“The economy will size at Rs 1,219 billion on current basic price in 2010/11,” reads a CBS statement.
This is going to raise the GDP per capita of Nepal to US$ 642 in 2010/11, from US$ 556 in 2009/10.
CBS has attributed the growth to good monsoon and winter harvest, which contributed the agricultural GDP to grow by 4.11 percent. Last year, agro-GDP had grown by just 1.27 percent.
However, it notes that the non-agriculture GDP will grow by just 3.09 percent in 2010/11, whereas last year it had expanded by 5.39 percent.
“Key sectors of economy, except agriculture, are witnessing much slower growth this year,” said Suman Aryal, director of the CBS.
Worse still, the country’s wholesale and retail trade as well as energy sectors are projected to record negative growth rate this year.
CBS had prepared the report on the basis of estimations and statistics received from different sectors over a span of three to seven months of 2010/11.
According to CBS, production of cereal crops is estimated to grow by 5.61 percent, with production of paddy and maize going up by 10.85 percent and 11.45 percent respectively.
Similarly, production of vegetables and fruits are projected to grow by 4.39 percent and 3.11 percent respectively.
Meat and other animal products, including milk production, are expected to go up by 2.01 percent and 7.88 percent respectively.
Fishery is estimated to expand by 6.8 percent in the ongoing fiscal year.
The CBS has also projected mining sector to grow by 2.09 percent, compared to 3.14 percent growth of the last fiscal year.
Manufacturing sector is also projected to rise by a meager 1.47 percent due to decline in the production of major industrial goods such as soybean oil, biscuits, beer, soft drinks, jute, leather, paper and paper products; plastic, iron rods, GI pipe and electric wires.
Construction sector is estimated to rise by 3.33 percent this year, compared to 4.98 percent growth of last year, mainly because of decline in government as well as private sector construction.
Hotel and restaurant; and transport and warehouse sectors, on the other hand, are estimated to grow by 7.37 percent and 7.15 percent respectively.
Total consumption during the year is expected to touch Rs 1,257.18 billion, which is 93.34 percent of total GDP. Likewise, gross national disposable income is expected to touch Rs 1,673.59 billion in the ongoing fiscal year.
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