Business News
Nepal's trade deficit excluding India rises over 51 billion rupees
Aug 25, 2007, 6:38 GMT
Kathmandu - Nepal's trade deficit with countries other than India showed a sharp rise to 51.6 billion rupees (794 million dollars), new government figures showed Saturday.
The figures released by Trade and Export Promotion Centre said the trade deficit widened mainly due to Nepal's sluggish exports vis-a- vis a sharp rise in imports in the first 11 months of the fiscal year 2006-07.
'Nepal's exports dropped by 6.8 per cent, but imports grew by 11.3 per cent,' the centre said. 'Nepal exported various goods worth over 15.29 billion rupees during the period, whereas the total imports stood at 66.89 billion rupees.'
The centre cited a plunge in ready-made garments and woollen carpets, two of Nepal's biggest exports, as the main reason.
The other reason cited by the centre included 'unfavourable security situation' that hit the Nepalese manufacturing sector in the form of strikes, as well as the lack of an investor-friendly environment and frequent electricity outages.
Of the two major exportable commodities, woollen carpets dropped by 10.8 per cent while the exports of ready-made garments recorded a whopping fall of 26.3 per cent.
The major markets for woollen carpets are Germany, Britain, the United States and Switzerland, whereas a majority of the garments were exported to the US, France and Canada.
Figures do not include Nepal's trade with India which accounts for nearly 50 per cent of the total.
According to Trade and Export Promotion Centre, the US was Nepal's second biggest export destination after India accounting for 32.4 per cent of Nepalese market share.
European nation Germany accounted for 15.4 per cent of Nepal's total exports, while Britain and France accounted for 5.7 per cent of Nepal's third-country exports.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Nepal India Trade is determined by so many interests-the treaties, open border, unequal competitiveness,fixed exchange rate, subsidiese Indian Agricultural goods,domestic unfavourable policies, technological backwardness, human resources, etc.
Nepal India Trade is determined by so many interests-the treaties, open border, unequal competitiveness,fixed exchange rate, subsidised Indian Agricultural goods,domestic unfavourable policies, technological backwardness, human resources, etc.
page: 1
D.R. GurungAug 27th, 2007 - 06:46:14
Nepal is going through real rough time. It is because Nepalese in general interpreted democracy in wrong sense! In addition the administration went bad to worse.
Main blame goes to the Communinist parties of Nepal specially the Maoist. The Maoist translated democracy in wrong way and totally exploited factory workers in asking better conditions. In any industry workers only receive better condition if the industry makes profit. But in Nepal nothing was considere in that direction.
On the other hand government has not planned to set up industries to produce anything in the country for domestic use. In addition there is no security for foreign investors. The country is totally depending on foreign imports. Local production like woolen carpets and garment factories are closed due to labour unrest. With this type of situation in hand Nepal will see even worse scene in future to come.
In any country if political change takes place naturally it is hoped that things will improve. Regrettably in Nepal it does not happen but everything worsens. It is because the administrators of the country are all extremely in experience. In addition almost all Nepalese are only power and position hungry. No one has intention to build Nation only to make quick money from easy way.
This will continue for long time in future. The main problem in Nepal is that bad practices has become tradition.
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