At a meeting with officials from National Planning Commission (NPC), Ministry of Finance (MoF) and financial sector regulators, Bhattarai urged the officials to devise plans putting economic development agenda at the center.[break]
Vice Chairman of NPC Dipendra Bahadur Kshetry, Nepal Rastra Bank Governor Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada, Chief Secretary Lilamani Poudel, Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi and Secretary at the Prime Minister´s Office Krishna Hari Baskota were present in the meeting. Similarly, Baburam Shrestha, chairman of Securities Board of Nepal and Fatta Bahadur KC, chairman of Insurance Board also attended the meeting.
“We need to achieve double-digit growth and per capita income of $3,000 over the next ten years. Our plans should be devised accordingly,” said Bhattarai.
The PM also instructed officials no to create shortage of funds for national pride projects. He also asked them to be liberal toward highly-indebted firms while recovering loans, implement the proposal to rehabilitate ailing industries and simplify the process of distributing export incentive. Bhattarai also instructed officials to allocate sufficient budget to purchase two aircraft for international operations and six aircraft for domestic operations for Nepal Airlines Corporation. He also sought concrete programs to increase export of 19 products included in Nepal Trade Integration Strategy (NTIS) to at least one billion rupees each.
Speaking at the meeting, he also urged the officials to make timely revision of foreign aid policy and open handicraft villages and organic fertilizer factory in each development region.
Expressing dissatisfaction over lack of transparency in non-government organizations (NGOs), PM Bhattarai urged the officials not to remain mute spectator. NGOs are brining in huge amount of foreign without informing the government, you must look into it, he said.
PM Bhattarai also instructed the high-ranking officials to formulate a specific vision that promotes commercialization in agriculture sector by exploiting the knowledge gained by migrant returnees, creates environment for generating employment and reduces poverty. He also stressed the need to create an environment to lure foreign investment, especially in energy and infrastructure sectors.
He also expressed dissatisfaction over slow progress of plans to bring new investment, lack of proper monitoring of cooperatives, slow performance in spending donor assistance and low investment by banks in productive sectors.
On the occasion, Kshetry briefed the PM about the priorities of NPC for the coming fiscal year. Similarly, Subedi informed Bhattarai about the current economic status of the country while Khatiwada briefed the Prime Minister about the country´s monetary situation.
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