VP Pun urges to develop quality health infrastructure

Kathmandu, Jan. 30: Vice-President Nanda Bahadur Pun on Tuesday said that it was unfortunate that people in Nepal were dying in the absence of basic medicines and health facilities even though the Constitution has guaranteed basic health services to them. 

“Even in the age of modern technology and advanced health services, people in Nepal are deprived of basic health services and medicines. Therefore, more investment should be channelled to create quality health infrastructure and services,” said the VP at a programme organised on the occasion of the 27^th Anniversary of Deural Janta Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Limited (DJPL) here. 

He urged both the government and private sector to invest in health and medicine sectors and promote health research and development. 

VP Pun said that due to its rich herbal and medicinal plants, Nepal could be a medicine exporting country in the near future, therefore traditional medicines should be preserved. 

“But the size of exports is very small, which stands at Rs. 708.5 million as per last year’s data. The government has put its efforts to make the country self-reliant in medicines, but without the private sector’s support it is difficult to achieve the target,” he said. 

The Nepali medicine market size is Rs. 40 billion, and of that only 44 per cent is manufactured domestically.

Executive Director of the DJPL Hari Bhakta Sharma said that if the government were to create a conducive environment and facilitate the investors, Nepal could substitute Rs. 27 billion worth of drug imports. 

According to him, the DJPL has set an example of good business and quality products with the application of international standards.  

“We are dedicated to economic and industrial development by creating respect to work, increasing productivity, developing a good work culture and enhancing the capacity of the employees,” said Sharma. 

He said that the government should promote industries and businesses rather than the non-government organisations.

On the occasion of the anniversary, the company organised a race of its staff from Kamalpokhari to the factory at Dhapasi, in which Suraj Shrestha and Bivek Chandra Rai in the male category and Deepa Shrestha and Rupa Shrestha in female category stood first and second respectively.

DJPL is a World Health Organisation’s Good Manufacturing Practice (WHO-GMP) certified company with an ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 standards. 

According to the company, about Rs. 1.31 billion has been invested in the production plants and business of the pharmaceutical company so far.

DJPL produces 320 types of medicines, syrup, tablets, capsules, dry powder/ORS and ointment required for the treatment of various diseases. It employs 450 people directly. 

Published in The Rising Nepal on 31 January 2018.

NITF from March 8

Kathmandu, Jan. 29: The 7^th Nepal International Trade Fair 2018 will be held at Bhrikutimandap Exhibition Centre from March 8 to 12 this year. 

The fair is being organised as a forum for presenting national and international brands and products and promoting them, and establishing business contacts with potential buyers, suppliers and technology providers for enhancing business, co-organiser of the event the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) said. 

"It will offer learning, exploring and discovering new opportunities by interacting with other exhibitors. It will bring together the producers, suppliers, retailers and wholesalers," said Dil Sundar Shrestha, chairperson of the Trade Fair Committee under the FNCCI. 

The event is being organised in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC) and co-organised by Federation of Handicraft Association of Nepal (FHAN) and Lalitpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

It is a calendar event of the FNCCI. 

 According to Shrestha, the fair will have more than 300 stalls, of them 80 per cent have been already sold. 

About 200 national and 140 international exhibitors will showcase their products in the fair.

Buyers from China, India, Bangladesh, Korea, Japan, Israel, Germany, the European Union, the United States of America, and foreign delegations from China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Korea will participate in the trade fair. 

"Handicraft and products included in the Nepal Trade Integration Strategy will be the major attractions of the exhibition. There will be special stalls for handicraft, tourism, information technology and business information, agricultural products, energy, housing and construction, education, medicine, iron and steel and automobiles," said Shrestha. 

According to him, the fair aims at holding direct interaction with the potential buyers of the 'made in Nepal' goods which will help enhance the international market of those products. Similarly, there will be discussions on promoting bilateral trade and investment promotion. 

Job fair will also be another attractive feature of the event.

"Job fair will be an interactive platform for potential employers and job seekers. It will be facilitated by Employment Service Centres (ESCs) functioning under the Department of Labour," said the organisers. 

The job fair is being organised by the FNCCI in support with the Labour Market Information and Employment Services (LIFE) project, International Labour Organisation (ILO) in order to promote ESC. 

President of the FNCCI Bhawani Rana said that the fair would play an important role in attracting international investment and technology, promoting Nepali products in the international market and thus support in the economic progress of the country. 

She said that the FNCCI would raise the issue of economic development from the local level. 

Published in The Rising Nepal on Jan. 30, 2018. 

Oli stresses on creating regional energy infrastructure

Kathmandu, Jan. 28: Former Prime Minister and Chair of the CPN-UML KP Sharma Oli Sunday said that Nepal should create regional energy infrastructure to facilitate the power trade.

"This is also necessary in the context of seasonality of power production and consumption, energy mix, cost effectiveness in transmission and distribution, substation of energy demand by clean and renewable energy than fossil fuel based ones," he said while addressing the Nepal Power Investment Summit 2018.

He said that regional cooperation in energy was also about energy trading in South Asia and Nepal should create environment for energy trade also under the spirit of South Asian Free Trade Association (SAFTA) and create regional energy infrastructure for power trade.

According to him, electricity is a tradable good, and is heavily traded globally. Nepal's demand for electricity for domestic consumption for an economic growth rate of 8 to 9 per cent can be met with the installation of only 15,000 megawatt of hydropower capacity.

"As one of the key development strategies, our party intends to ensure energy security to our citizens along with other securities such as food security," said Oli.

He busted the myths related to energy in the country saying that the energy demand in Nepal would grow by higher than the present estimate of 10 to 12 percent per annum.

In fact, economic transformation and development of energy substitution technology in transportation, industry business and household consumption will create energy demand for geometrical growth in power consumption, he said.

Oli emphasised that the creation of higher power demand at home calls for restructuring the transportation, industrial and business systems, and the country needs to create new electric infrastructure by building electric trains, electric metros, electric vehicles and electricity based cooking.

"The result of such will be replacing of imported fossil fuel which in turns preserves the environment of Nepal and provides pollution free future for all our citizens," he said.

Traditional fuel source such as wood covers three fourth of energy demand in Nepal. Industrial, commercial and transport energy are mostly based on fossil fuel. Current energy consumption at 140 KWh is very low compared with the South Asian average of more than 700 KWh.

Oli said that Nepal intends to increase the consumption of 1500 KWh in 15 years which calls for rapid growth in electricity generation.

He also shared that his party, CPN-UML, aims at generating 15,000 MW of energy in 10 years with an energy mix of hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources.

Meanwhile, speaking at the summit, experts and industry insiders have called for more optimizations and innovative ways of financing in a bid to further develop Nepal’s hydropower sector. Speaking during a panel discussion, 'FDI in Nepal’s Power Sector', the developers said that at a time when the per capita energy consumption in Nepal was low, there was no way than attracting foreign investment in Nepal’s power landscape.

“However, since hydropower projects are capital intensive and have longer gestation period, innovative financing solutions like equity financing is the game of the time,” says RajenKandel, Director of Kandel Group.

According to him lack of investment opportunity within Nepal and the growing demand of energy every day offers high level of investment scope to the international investors to build hydropower projects in Nepal.

N. L. Sharma, Chairman of Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam, however, pointed out political instability, lack of tax incentive, hassles during the land accusation and clearance of forest and environment as some of the factors distracting FDI in Nepal’s energy sector.

The speakers also called for independent power sector regulator to check the demand and supply side situation as well as to fix the energy tariff.

Apar Neupane, Vice-President, Finance at Equicap Asia Pvt Ltd said that the mismatching of several stakeholders’ interest was a biggest hindrance for FDI to come to Nepal. “From the government to the project affected area, from the developer to contractor and financer, there are multiple stakeholder involved,” he said. “Unluckily, they have their own interests. The more their interests collide, the project less likely to succeed.”

Joseph Hoess, Director of Dragon Capital, Vietnam says that the hassles that any foreign investors have to go through while doing ground works were what was aggravating the situation. “We are private sector who look maximized return within short period of time, but here in Nepal we have to invest more than five years doing basis things, getting approvals and clearances,” he said. “Nobody is interested in spending such a longer time for all those trifles.”

Gorakh Rana, Head of Commercial and Global Banking at Standard Chartered Bank, said that the Nepal’s banks had not been able to extend sufficient financing for the hydropower projects due to the lack of communication.

Naoki Nishimura, a JICA representative, urged for a strong local partner to attract the FDI.“The efficient local partner with ability to equity financing and doing background work for the foreign investor can play a significant role in bringing in huge amount of foreign investment of Nepal’s energy sector,” he said.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on Jan. 29, 2018. 

Firm claims harassment over New Road biz complex

Kathmandu, Jan. 28: Maharjan Business Associates Sunday said that their right to property was intruded on as some people continuously harassed them and tried to disgrace them publicly. 

The company is constructing a business complex dismantling the erstwhile Crystal Hotel at the eastern side of the Hanumandhok Durbar Square. 

"We have followed all the legal procedures and building construction standards around the Durbar Square as well as the quake resistant measures. The Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office has approved the house-design," said Krishna Lal Maharjan of the company. 

A group of people had organised a protest programme near the construction site, burned effigy of Maharjan brothers, filed compliant at various government agencies as well as the UNESCO Nepal Office, and now they are organising a signature campaign against the building, which is named as Maharjan Complex. 

"Their activities are not only obstructing us from exercising our right to property, but it has causing lots of psychological tensions," said Maharjan. 

The company is constructing the commercial complex at the cost of Rs. 2.5 billion. The building will be built as per neo-classical model which add beauty to the locality, claimed the company.

The UNESCO Nepal Office has concluded that the construction of the building will fully respect the allowable height limit and have a neo-classical style façade, matching the surroundings, in particular with the Gaddhi Baithak, and the digging of the underground was done in an area, which already mostly had an underground floor, with some additional parts necessary for the structural stability of the building. 

Maharjan said that the new building will expand in 20 Ana and 40 per cent land will be left as void and circulation path.

Although the standards issued by the Department of Archaeology (DoA) for the construction at the Hanumandhoka Conservation Site allow to construct the building at its earlier height of eight storeys, the new building will have only 5-storey including the basement and will be 42 feet tall.

The erstwhile Crystal hotel was 53.3 feet tall. 

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on Jan. 28, 2018. 

Hydro development is govt’s priority: President Bhandari

Kathmandu, Jan. 27:

President Bidya Devi Bhandari said that the government has given top priority to infrastructure investment specially the hydropower development. 

“After the conclusion of peace process and implementation of federal constitution, the country’s major agenda is rapid economic progress for which it needs robust infrastructure development. Therefore, the government has been putting its efforts to attract domestic as well as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI),” the President said at the Nepal Power Investment Summit 2018. 

Saying the country has been gradually improving its investment and business climate, she urged the investors to come to Nepal to make most of the hydropower potential which is yet to be exploited.

“Developing hydropower projects in Nepal will prove beneficial for the whole South Asian region in the long run,” said Bhandari. 

She also launched a hydropower buide-book, ‘How to Develop a Hydropower Projects in Nepal’, which was published by the event organiser. 

Chairman of Electricity Development Council, organiser of the summit, Sujit Acharya said that it was possible to develop 40,000 mw in a decade. 

“Large power merkets, India, Bangladesh and China, are just 1 km to 150 km away from Nepal. The potential in electricity has also created a large possibility in establishing electric vehicle and other equipment assembling plants in Nepal,” he said. 

More than 350 hydro experts, private sector representatives, government officials, developers and financers from 24 countries around the globe are attending the summit.

The organiser said that the conference was organised with an objective of showcasing Nepal as an ideal investment destination in the area of energy development.

The 3-day summit will run till Monday.

Published in The Rising Nepal on Jan. 28, 2018.