Govt to hold II investment summit in 2019

Kathmandu, Oct. 9: 

With an aim of materialising the foreign investment intent expressed by various investors during the Nepal Investment Summit 2017 and attracting more foreign investors, the government is setting the stage to hold the second investment conference. 

The summit will be organised in January or February 2019, said Maha Prasad Adhikari, Chief Executive Officer of the Investment Board of Nepal (IBN).

Currently, the IBN is working with the National Planning Commission, concerned ministries, provincial governments and private sectors to identify suitable projects to showcase them in the summit. 

"There has been project development exercise for many months now. This time, we will showcase the projects from the provinces," said Adhikari. 

IBN had already conducted interaction with the provincial governments and other stakeholders in order to identify the bankable projects in various provinces. 

According to Adhikari, the exercise will enhance the capacity of the provinces in identifying and developing large projects and will create local ownership. 

The IBN said that there were very few mega projects to offer to the investors during the first investment summit but there would be more projects with additional geographical and sectoral diversity. 

Nepal had organised the investment summit in the first week of March 2017 with an objective of luring foreign investors by promoting various business and investment opportunities in the country.

The country was largely unable to attract the foreign investors who expressed interest in bringing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) then as most of them are 'not so exited' to invest here as the government couldn't offer attractive projects, specially in infrastructure sector including hydroelectricity.

It can also be due to the indifference of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MoICS) and National Planning Commission (NPC) the two major stakeholders which were supposed to work for improving the policy regime in the country and help the prospective investors with required support. 

A senior official at the MoICS brushed off the responsibility saying that 'the things were taken care of by the IBN' while the NPC-led committee is almost defunct. 

Frequent change of ministers at the MoICS and members at the NPC had also discouraged the investors. 

However, the IBN has made a significant progress in project documentation, said Adhikari. 

"The country has political stability now and we are working to create policy stability and single window facility to the investors. Therefore, we are hopeful of attracting more FDI from the summit," he said. 

Ram Krishna Khatiwada, a consultant at the IBN said that the international experience had shown that a country should organise multiple investment summit in order to win the confidence of the foreign investors and attract investment. 

According to him, the IBN has made progress in the feasibility of large projects like luxury resort, sport and health city and hydroelectricity. 

However, he admitted that there were less activities in the past and projects were not ready. 

Investors from six countries – China, Bangladesh, Japan, the United Kingdom, Sri Lanka and India – had expressed their intent to pump in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of about US$ 14 billion in the summit in 2017, which was higher than the government’s expectation or Rs. 100 billion.

The investors had expressed interest in hydroelectricity, airport, highway, mining, food, tourism, manufacturing, solar energy, steel plant and construction sectors.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on October 10, 2018.