FM urges the World Bank to revive Doing Business assessment method

Kathmandu, Nov. 30: Finance Minister Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada said on Friday that the World Bank (WB) should revise the bases and methodology of the Doing Business Index.

Nepal has given continuation to the policy and system reform in order to create more conducive investment and business climate but the report has missed to mention them, Dr. Khatiwada said in a meeting on Doing Business Report 2019 with the WB representative and Doing Business Mission at his office Singha Durbar.

“The country has created better industrial environment and labour relations through tripartite agreement and understandings among the employers, employees and workers. We have good labour relations in the last couple of years. These and other sectors that witnessed improvements in Nepal have not been duly addressed in the report,” said Dr. Khatiwada.

He said that in the future reports, more interactions should be held with the government along with the private sector in order to make the assessment more authentic.

According to him, the Finance Ministry will work as the focal agency in economic reforms and he will take the charge of creating investment environment in the country. He also expressed commitment to continue with the private sector facilitation.

The WB mission said that the investment climate in the country would improve if there was a high-level commitment and reforms in some policies and processes.

WB Country Manager for Nepal Faris Hadad-Zervos appreciated the FM’s commitment and said that the multilateral financial institution was ready to join hands with the government.

“Sometimes such reports may not be able to give a real picture due to the failure in reporting real and sufficient information. Concern stakeholders should be aware of this fact,” he said.

According to the WB flagship publication Doing Business Report 2019, published a couple of weeks ago, Nepal slid five places down to 110^th  position due to its failure in simplifying tax payment process. The Labour Act promulgated last year made a provision that the employer should pay the labour gratuity, medical insurance and accident insurance.

The government immediately rejected to buy the findings of the report saying that it missed to notice the reforms that took place in the past couple of years.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 1 December 2018.