Budget to focus on economic revival, disaster preparedness

Principles and Priorities of FY 2020/21 Budget

Kathmandu, May 10

Minister for Finance Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada Sunday said the budget for the next fiscal year 2020/21 would focus on mitigating the impact of coronavirus on the economy including the private sector business, and creating resilient health and disaster preparedness infrastructure.

Presenting the Principles and Priorities of the Budget of FY 2020/21 at the Federal Parliament today, he said that the upcoming budget would pay enough attention to the creation of a system of disaster preparedness and management.

"Institutionalising the achievements in development, good governance and prosperity made so far, quality and accessible health service would be ensured to save the lives of people from the coronavirus pandemic. The state will fulfil its responsibility in regard to welfare," he said.

Dr Khatiwada said that a higher cooperation, collaboration and participation among the federal, state and local level governments would be maintained for disaster risk reduction and management, health service and safety, relief and economic rehabilitation, and balanced and sustainable development.

A co-investment modality among the governments would be adopted for the development of health infrastructure, enhancement of the capacity of human resources and expansion of health insurance to make the health system more resilient.

According to him, the budget would aim at creating new confidence, awareness and activity to revive the economy that is suffering due to the coronavirus outbreak and lockdown imposed to save the lives of people from the crisis. "Our aim would be to make the economy more dynamic against the current recession created by the pandemic," he said. "I feel higher responsibilities while formulating the budget for the next fiscal at the time when the country is struggling to contain the coronavirus outbreak and save health and lives of people, and keep the economy alive," he added.

The budget would aim at just distribution of the resources to alleviate poverty. A greater cooperation would be promoted among the three levels of the government for the sustainable and maximum use of the resources and capacity.

It will have programmes including tax discount and monetary instruments to address the impact of the pandemic on the private businesses.

"The budget will have programmes to rehabilitate the employment lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, provide jobs to the youth returning from foreign employment, increase self-employment and motivate people to take up small, cottage and medium scale enterprise in agriculture and service sector," said the Finance Minister.

It will have programmes to include the workers of the informal sector and daily wage earners in the labour-oriented technology and provide them jobs. Similarly, there would be programmes to utilise the private sectors' innovation, capability, resource and entrepreneurship to increase the economic capacity, create jobs and mobilise national capital.

Higher priority would be given to the industries that use the domestic raw materials and create high value addition while the enterprises that help in import substitution would be protected.

Other businesses that will get priority in rehabilitation programmes are hotel, restaurant, airlines, travel and trekking, mountaineering. "Tourism products and destinations will be diversified, airport construction and tourism infrastructure development will be expedited, and internal tourism and rural enterprises will be supported," said FM Dr Khatiwada.

Likewise, the budget will also pay attention to ensuring access of all citizens to the means of production and distributing the benefits.

River diversion projects will be started in the next fiscal year while river embankment projects will also be continued.

Energy and road infrastructure will get a good share of resources in the budget. Most of the post-quake reconstruction work will be completed and the capacity of local level will be enhanced in terms of disaster management.

Programmes will be introduced to make the agriculture commercial and mechanised in order to increase farmers' income and enhance food security. Irrigation, agricultural inputs, technology and market access will be included in the budget.

Finance Minister Dr Khatiwada also said that the social security programmes will be based on contribution and made more equitable. Technical education will be included in high-school level curriculum.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 11 May 2020.