Nepal's made progress in Property Rights Index

Kathmandu, Aug 14: Nepal has made a significant progress in the global property rights index.

Nepal has ranked 97^th out of 128 countries in terms of the strength of property rights in the International Property Rights Index (IPRI) 2016.

Nepal’s position was 100^th out of 129 countries in 2015 with 4.2 marks in the scale of zero to 10.

According to the report recently released by the Property Rights Alliance (PRA) – a Washington DC based think tank, Nepal obtained 4.5 this year.

On the regional level, Nepal’s position has remained unchanged, it is placed in the 17^th position in the Asian and Oceania region.

Nepal has become stronger in three core components of the IPRI – legal and political environment (LP), physical property rights (PPR) and intellectual property rights (IPR).

Nepal’s sub-index of LP increased by 0.5 to 3.9 with scores 4.5 in judicial independence, 3.6 in rule of law, 3.6 in political stability and 3.9 in control of corruption.

The PPR sub-index increased by 0.2 to 5.5 with scores of 4.5 in property rights, 9.8 in registering property and 2.1 in ease of access to loans.

Similarly, IPR sub-index is up by 0.2 to 4.0 with scores of 3.6 in intellectual property protection, 4.4 in patent protection and no score for the copyright privacy level.

The SAARC average for IPRI is 4.3, LP 3.9, PPR 5.5 and IPR 3.9.

Likewise, Asian average is 5.5 for IPRI, 5.2 for LP, 6.3 for PPR and 5.1 for IPR.

European Union stands at 6.6, 6.7, 6.3 and 6.9 respectively in those four categories.

Even though the country has marked some progress in property rights, it remains at the bottom 20 per cent countries.

Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) president Pashupati Murarka remarked that the political instability had severe repercussion on the business environment.

“The government changes every year or sooner. It has no presence at the local level while the bureaucracy is highly politicized,” he said.

He stressed on the need to make the judicial process faster.

“The slow decision process while granting trademarks and patents has been scaring the investors away. The government should facilitate the international investors and brands in order to invite more foreign direct investment in the country,” said Murarka.

Governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank Chiranjivi said that the guarantee of the property rights would lead the country towards the path of economic development.

According to the PRA, the legal and political environment component provides an insight into the strength of the institutions of a country and respect of the ‘rules of the game’ among citizens. This component has a significant impact on the development and protection of physical and intellectual property rights.

The other two components of the index – physical and intellectual property rights – reflect two forms of property rights which are crucial to the economic development of a country.

“Strong property rights system is a key element for fostering economic growth. Weak property rights are most commonly seen in the developing world,” said Samriddhi, local partner of the PRA in Nepal.

Finland bags the top spot in the index with a score of 8.4 while Venezuela ranks at the bottom with 2.7.

New Zealand (8.27), Luxemburg (8.3), Switzerland (8.2) and the Netherlands (8.0) are other top ranking countries.

Other bottom ranking countries are Haiti (2.9), Myanmar (2.8), Bangladesh (2.8), Zimbawe (3.4), Burundi (3.4), Nigeria (3.6) and Moldova, Pakistan and Mauritania (3.7).