To attain it, they suggested the government to seriously review the incentives that their competitors, mainly in the neighboring Indian states, are enjoying while formulating the new industrial policy.
“Unless the domestic industrial policy matches up with that of the neighboring states, it will fail to catalyze investment and industrial growth in the country,” said Binod Chaudhary, president of Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI).
At an interaction program, entrepreneurs demanded the government to pledge pre-production facilities such as exemption of registration fee on land. They also sought 50 percent subsidy on the operations of captive power plant for power generation and reduction of corporate tax to 20 percent from 25 percent.
They also urged the government to adopt measures such as higher tariff on finished goods than raw materials imports, so that they could effectively compete with the imported goods.
In this connection, CNI proposed that the government fix import duty at 5 percent for raw materials, 10 percent on intermediate industrial products and 15 percent duty on products that are also produced domestically.
Industrialists also noted that difficulty of land acquisition was fast emerging as one major obstacle for the setting up of industries in the country and urged the government to ease and effectively enforce land acquisition process.
Given the inordinate hike in land prices by the locals as soon as the plan of industrial set up is disclosed, they even urged the government to acquire the land itself and provide it to them at the cost price.
Entrepreneurs also demanded that the government make the Ministry of Industry an authoritative ministry to prevail in the cabinet when matters related to industries are discussed and decided. “Also the new policy must make sure that the duty concessions and facilities pledged in it will not be annulled by any other laws including financial regulations or income tax,” said Chaudhary.
Entrepreneurs also recommended that the government designate Industrial promotion board (IPB) as an authoritative and final body in making decisions and enforce policies such as exit of industries.
They also urged the government to set up a laboratory for accrediting technical and laboratory standards and make sure that industrial laws and other regulations are fine-tuned with the new policy within six months of its promulgation.
Industrialists also urged the government to sign the agreement on avoidance of double taxation with all the countries that have investments in Nepal. They also demanded security for industries and entrepreneurs.
Responding to the entrepreneurs, Minister for Industry Mahendra Yadav said that the government has recently formed a committee to design and implement Industrial Security Force, which will work for protecting the industrial set up and also the security of the entrepreneurs.
Pratap Kumar Pathak, Industry Secretary also informed that the government was relaxing the benchmark on export-oriented industries and could recognize all industries that export at least 60 percent of their productions as export oriented industries.
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