Country needs better project management: Dr. Wagle

Kathmandu, July 31: Member of National Planning Commission Dr. Swarnim Wagle said that in order to sustain the current economic growth rate of 7 per cent for several years from now, the country must change the way in managing and handling development projects.

Speaking at the launching programme of ‘Nepal economic outlook 2016-17,’ he said that the country was lagging behind in development due to poor project implementation and management.

“The country witnessed miraculous changes in social and political sector but failed to achieve noticeable economic progress so far. As we aspire to become a middle income country by 2030, we need to change the way of development,” he said.

According to him, Nepal should consider equidistance with its neighbours, demographic dividend, digitization and involving diaspora while planning for economic development.

Presenting the economic outlook of the country, Dr. Nayan Krishna Joshi, senior economist at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) at the Kathmandu University, said that Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate for the current fiscal year would be 3.54 per cent and 3.79 in the fiscal year 2018/19.

The forecast is quite lower than the government estimation as the government expects to achieve the growth rate or 7.2 per cent in the current fiscal year and hopes to sustain it for a couple of years.

The country achieved the growth rate of 6.94 per cent in the last fiscal year 2016/17 which the experts said that was due to the poor base of the previous year when the GDP growth rate was almost zero.

“Consumer price inflation is forecasted to remain at 6.05 per cent in FY 2017/2018 and 6.03 in FY 2018/19,” read the report.

The programme was organised by IIDS.

Speaking at the programme, Finance Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said that the country was unable to utilise and mobilise the available resources.

“We have been long failing to tap our natural, cultural and historical resources, and to unlock the potentials in hydropower, tourism and agriculture,” he said.

According to him, the country should first concentrate in infrastructure development since it was the prerequisite for economic and social development.