-Prakash Silwal
Kathmandu, February 10: The government is planning to constitute a separate mechanism for the inter-ministerial coordination to lure more foreign investment in the country. A meeting of the National Development Problems Resolution Committee held in the National Planning Commission (NPC) on Sunday (Feb 9) under the chair of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli took a decision for the constitution of a dedicated mechanism for the follow up of previous years’ commitments and to attract more foreign investment.
The mechanism shall coordinate with the stakeholders and foreign countries to bring in the foreign investments from the neighbouring countries in order to materialise the national slogan of “Prosperous Nepal: Happy Nepali”.
It is to be headed by the NPC member, who oversees the economic sector, shall consist of other bodies’ office-bearers. Though industrialists and entrepreneurs were very excited from the Investment Summit, where around 700 foreign industrialists from 40 different countries and 600 national industrialists had participated, the committee of the Commission initiated a new initiative in lack of its effective implementation.
Chairing the Committee’s meeting, NPC Chair Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli urged the stakeholder to give priority for creating environment to increase foreign investment. Deputy Prime Minister and ministers of the federal government, chief ministers of all seven states and secretaries of the government ministries were present at the meeting.
On the occasion, PM Oli stressed the need for further accelerating the activities related to the development and prosperity as the commitment made in the investment summit has not been received yet. The meeting also asked the Foreign Ministry to prepare a strategy on the issue of coordination of concerned bodies in course of representing Nepal from the federation, state and local levels in the United Nation and other international organisations as well as in international meeting and conferences and submit it in the cabinet.
NPC Vice-Chair Dr Pushpa Raj Kandel said the meeting decided for the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development to amend procedure related to subsidy and manage other processes to encourage fishery. The meeting also decided to form a committee coordinated by an NPC member to prepare standards to extract and use construction materials like sands and pebbles from various areas in infrastructure development. Likewise, it was decided upon to resolve problems relating to the use of public lands required to implement programmes of state government within a month.
While responding to the queries on the behalf of Prime Minister, DPM Pokhrel stressed on active implementation of the previous decisions, adding that some confusions would be sorted out through the Cabinet meeting and the inter-state mechanism. He committed to seriously implement the received suggestions. DPM Pokhrel argued that it was not the change of government as it should be understood as the change in the governance system. Earlier, Vice-Chairman of NPC Dr Pushparaj Kandel presented the quarterly progress report of the fiscal year 2076/77 BS, urging for reforms in the traditional way of performance.
He said that the State should monitor and coordinate and local levels and prepare the result-oriented programmes. On the occasion, Prime Minister Oli had inaugurated Project Bank run by the NPC. According to the NPC secretary Laxman Aryal, the project bank would be an effective mechanism to manage the plans in a proper way, removing the technical hurdles. RSS
