Infra Summit in February

The second Nepal Infrastructure Summit 2017 has been scheduled to be organised on 19^th and 20^th February 2017. The

The event is jointly organised by the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI), government and Youth Community for Nepalese Contractors (YCNC) in association with other government agencies as well as bilateral and multilateral development partners.

The summit aims to facilitate discourse on indispensability of private sector in infrastructure development.

According to CNI president Hari Bhakta Sharma, the primary objective of the summit was to attract large scale private investment in areas of Nepal's core needs and strengths; forge stronger networks and alliances in the region for seamless connectivity and raise awareness on why investment in infrastructure needs an urgent push in the country.

"The summit will showcase the project bank developed by Investment Board Nepal (IBN) which will comprise around 50 viable infrastructure projects," he said.

CNI also aims to collect various infrastructure ideas from different sectors of the communities to come up with a creative and an innovative infrastructure – transportation, irrigation, energy, housing, digital etc. – ideas to solve the existing epic infrastructure deficit and address to the possible future need for our country's development.

CNI plans to collaborate with Idea Studio for the same.

"The summit will focus on the strategic vision of the infrastructure, value proposition, competitiveness, policy particularly on land acquisition and environmental clearance, and regulatory enablers and business environment," said Sharma.

According to CNI, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda will be the chief guest of the programme and Railway Minister of India Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu will be the guest of honour and key note speaker.

Investors, consulting service providers, builders, thought leaders, government agencies, diplomats, development partners, legislators, non-state actors and media from South Asia, South East Asia and other countries will participate in the summit.

The summit will deliberate on the topics like infrastructure: the big picture, barriers and constraints in attracting private and public investment, expediting public private partnership, finance resilient infrastructure, and successful PPP model: global and regional perspective.

"Nepal suffers an infrastructure deficit on an epic scale, stifling vast human potentials on several fronts. A World Bank estimate of the country's 'infrastructure gap' pegs investment needs at between 8 and 12 per cent national income this decade," read a press statement issued by the CNI.