Nepal needs policy reorientation: PM

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli Monday said that the country needed strategic reorientation of existing development policies, plans and implementation mechanism.

Addressing the 'Envisioning Nepal 2030' seminar PM Oli said, "The main challenge before us is to economically and socially empower the people through the expedited implementation of the economic and social agenda enshrined in the constitution. This would be possible through structural transformation of existing economic and social institutions, production relations and social values."

He stated that Nepal needed a long term development strategy to guide development required for the prosperity of people.

According to the Prime Minister, the country was facing challenge of accelerating economic growth and making the progress equitable, employment intensive and sustainable.

He expressed his readiness to implement programmes designed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through periodic plans and annual budgets, and urged for more global cooperation for financing the development programs and building national capacity to deliver.

"This will definitely require a convincing and credible long term development strategy based on the SDGs and our collective efforts to mobilize all available resources, including the knowledge resources," said PM Oli while mentioning that the conference would provide a platform to share such resources.

However, the Prime Minister maintained that Nepal had not yet been able to fully address exclusion, deprivation, and inequality across various social groups, gender and geographical regions.

He also noted that the new development plans needed inclusive approach for economic progress and social justice.

"The long term development strategy should now embrace inclusive development to ensure that those who have been excluded from the development mainstream are no more so," said PM Oli. "This is extremely necessary to avoid conflict, strengthen peace process and to achieve inclusive economic development with social justice."

As the country aspires to graduate to the developing nation from its current Least Developed Country (LDC) status, its annual investment must at least to be doubled in order to build infrastructure like transportation, communication and electricity.

In this context, PM Oli urged the international business community to make investment in Nepal.

Saying Nepal had tremendous potential in high value agriculture and agro-industries, hydropower and tourism, he said that Nepal's liberal taxation, trade, investment, and foreign exchange regimes provided vast opportunities for foreign investment.

"On the other hand, large markets across the border offer huge export potentials for the agro and manufacturing products. The potentials for tourism are even higher with large and growing middle class across," he said.

Speaking in line with the Prime Minister, Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel stated that in order to guarantee the availability of development outputs to all citizens, we need to start formulating a plan with due priority to inclusive growth and social justice.

He said that the country aimed at attaining high and sustainable economic growth through modern and commercial agriculture, competitive industrial outputs and efficient and quality service sector development.

Vice-Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada informed that the seminar was organized to discuss the solutions for the new constitution and state restructuring, post-quake reconstruction, economic shocks from the trade blockade at the southern border, and Nepal's LDC graduation strategy 2022.

He said that public service delivery, public financial management, and good governance at all levels of the state were the prerequisite for the inclusive economic growth other than knowledge and technology, innovation, skill development and social inclusion.

"Nepal aims to increase the Per Capita Income from 772 US dollars in 2014 to 2500 dollars in 2020. Likewise, the multidimensional poverty will be reduced to 11 percent by 2020 from 44.2 per cent of 2014," he informed.

Former member of the NPC Dr. Swarnim Wagle introduced five-point formula for economic progress – launch next wave of reform, engineer big push in infrastructure, manage private saving and public expenditure, reorient production and exchange, and introduce smart social security.

Economist and member of Niti Aayog of India Dr. Bibek Debroy suggested the government move from subsidy to public investment in order to achieve the faster development results.

Professor Justin Yifu Lin, director of Center for New Structural Economics at Peking University, said that the industry policy of the country should try to reduce the transaction cost to help the entrepreneurs to grow.

Asian Development Bank's vice president Dr. Wencai Zhang, president of Korea Development Institute Dr. Joon-Kyung Kim, global head of Climate Change Policy at Centennial Group, USA Dr. Bindu Nath Lohani, former member of NPC and former lawmaker Dr. Dilli Raj Khanal, director and head of UNESCAP's South and South-West Asia Office Dr. Nagesh Kumar and other national and international economists, development and planning experts and engineers expressed their views in the seminar.