Rising inflation a major challenge

Finance Secretary Rameshore Khanal said that the soaring oil deficit, rising inflation and dwindling exports were the main challenges for the domestic economy.

Addressing a press interaction on the upcoming fiscal budget, organized by the Reporters' Club here Tuesday, he said that although a healthy revenue collection and improvement in capital expenditures painted a rosy picture of the future course of the economy, there was an urgent need to address the new challenges.

Khanal said that the upcoming budget would mainly focus on improving people's accessibility to basic services like education and health, and vowed that the budget would be able to make people feel change.

"We also need to enhance the state's expenditure capacity before taking any decision to increase the size of the budget," he said. He further added, "A true republic in the sense of a republic can only be achieved by replacing feudalistic distribution and production channels in order to ensure smooth supplies of basic services," he said.

Constituent Assembly member Janardhan Sharma said that the upcoming budget should be able to address aspirations of people but stressed that a basic budgetary discipline should be maintained in doing so. "The budget should clearly spell out programs and polices to raise national production and generate more employment opportunities.

Speaking at the interaction, professor Bishwambher Pyakuryal questioned the estimated economic growth rate forecasted by the National Planning Commission for the current fiscal year and said that an expenditure worth Rs 196 billion would be ideal for the next fiscal year. "Given the available resources and expenditure capacity we have, it would be better to allocate an expenditure of around Rs 196 billion," he said.

He also painted a gloomy picture of the economy and said that the economy is already not only in hyper inflation but also suffering from stagflation.

President of Nepal Chamber of Commerce Surendra Bir Malakar demanded that the upcoming budget focus on addressing the concerns the private sector has been repeatedly raising. Moreover, the government should formulate policies targeted at improving the investment climate by improving the law and order situation, and industrial relations.

Joint Secretary Krishna Hari Baskota highlighted the possible scenario of the new budget and said that it would focus on infrastructure development.
Source: eKantipur