High-level mechanism proposed to promote export trade

Kathmandu, Aug. 19

Government and private sector have pledged to create a high-level mechanism to promote and increase export trade.

The mechanism will be represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MoICS) and Federation of Export Entrepreneurs Nepal (FEEN), the latter informed at a press conference organised on Thursday to inform its interactions with the Nepali missions abroad.

The first initiation in this direction was the multi-party interaction.

Expressing serious concerns over Nepal’s deteriorating export trade in the past couple of decades, FEEN has organised intensive discussions with the Nepali ambassadors and head of missions abroad.

With the aim of promoting Nepal’s export trade and reducing trade deficit, enhancing effective coordination among the public-private stakeholders and making economic diplomacy more result-oriented, the FEEN interacted with 40 heads of missions abroad, representatives of Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC), export-related commodities associations, exporters and FEEN officials.

The programme, organised by the MoFA and coordinated by FEEN, was run for three days from 11 to 13 August.

The diplomats and entrepreneurs had discussed the current status of Nepal’s export trade, major exportable products, strategic plan for the marketing of original products, collective trademarks and role of diplomatic missions in trade promotion and marketing.

Traders said that the programme was an eye-opener in terms of Nepal’s trade promotion and awareness among the entrepreneurs and the diplomats.

“The interaction will help us in correcting our weakness as well. The TEPC and FEEN had offered in-depth presentation on the role of diplomatic missions’ role, plan and future collaborations,” President of FEEN Ram Bahadur Gurung said at a press conference organised on Thursday to inform about the interaction.

Nepali ambassadors have expressed their commitment to accord priority to the promotion of the export of Nepali goods.

Secretary of the MoFA Bharat Raj Poudyal had directed the missions to execute promotion programmes so that the results could be visible within one-and-a-half years.

FEEN said that the interaction and collaboration will help to meet its strategic goal of increasing Nepal’s trade to US$ 3 billion in the next three years and US$7 billion by 2025 from current $1 billion.

Contribution of export trade to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped down to 3.3 per cent in the last fiscal year 2020/21 from about 13 per cent two decades ago.

Likewise, contribution of industrial sector to the GDP has also decreased to 13.8 per cent from 16 per cent while manufacturing industries’ share has dropped to almost one-third from 15 per cent two decades ago to 5.1 per cent in the last fiscal.

Nepal’s total trade size reached Rs. 1680 billion in the last fiscal of which Rs. 1539 billion was import and only Rs. 141 billion was export.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 20 August 2021.