Kathmandu, July 9 : The country’s business community has said that the upcoming monetary policy should be focused on controlling the skyrocketing interest rates.
Speaking at a discussion program organized by the Nepal Rastra Bank, business leaders and executives came up such remarks.
Kamalesh Agrawal, general secretary at the Nepal Chamber of Commerce, said, “ The private sector is not being able to expand its business activities massively owing to the skyrocketing interest rates charged by banks and financial institutions. So, the NRB should bring a new monetary policy to address this problem in an effective way.”
The central bank should fix the lending rates at the range of 7% to 9%, according to him.
Bhawani Rana, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), also echoed the same concern, “The new monetary policy should facilitate the businesses entities to secure financial resources at reasonable lending rates. “The lack of such facilitation will inhibit the private sector from showing it performance to the optimum level. This could also make it hard to attain the set target of 8.5% growth rate for the upcoming fiscal year.”
She suggested the NRB to bring down the average interest rates spread to 3%, restrict banks from charging premiums on base rate higher than one percentage point and revise the base rate formula.
