Green Signal to Micro Industry Policies
The Policy that the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supply (MOICS) has recently formulated to ease the problems faced by micro industries have received green signal from the National Planning Commission.
“The Commission has already okayed the micro industry policy, now we will seek approval from Finance Ministry and then send it to the Cabinet for final approval,” said Joint Secretary Niranjan Baral who is also the spokesperson of MOICS.
Newly formulated policy has a comprehensive definition of micro enterprises and provides for waiver of customs duty, excise duty and Value Added Tax on the products of SMEs that are used as inputs in export products of big industries. However, such facility will be available only when there is a contract signed between the big and micro industrial units concerned. Likewise, the Ministry has also proposed to promote the participation of micro industries in national and international trade fairs. Since micro industries are based in the villages and the local people are the main beneficiaries of such schemes, the Ministry has proposed that registration and renewal of such industries should be done by the VDCs or Ward Committees of the municipalities concerned. The newly formulated policy also tries to propagate the ambitious plan of enabling all the villages to have at least one micro industry so that the slogan of ‘One Village One Product’ can be a reality.
An industry that employs less than nine workers and does the annual transaction of not more than two million rupees will be given the status of micro industry, according to the draft policy.
Fulbari Hotel again Knocks SC Door
Fulbari Hotel has knocked the door of the supreme court against Loan Recovery Tribunal that had stepped ahead to recover the bank loans from the hotel. The hotel had previously requested the Tribunal to postpone its action pointing out that a lawsuit related to the same case was pending in the Patan Appellate Court and any action against the hotel till the case is decided would be inconsistent with legal provisions. Director Piyush Bahadur Amatya of the hotel has filed a lawsuit against the Tribunal at the apex court.
The Tribunal has said that since its main objective is to dispose loan related lawsuits in a quickest possible manner, it can not halt its action against the Fulbari Hotel.
Pokhara Has New Dev. Bank
City Development bank which has a paid up capital of Rs. 50 million has commenced its operation in Pokhara as a regional development bank. The bank has been authorized to do its business in neighbouring districts of Lamjung and Tanahun as well. According to L.B. Baniya, a professor of management and the chairperson of the board of directors, with the opening of this bank, the residents of this scenic city of pokhara will have easy access to every day banking service including the evening service and ATM service which hitherto was unavailable to them. The head office of the bank is located at Chipledhunga of Pokhara. The bank has 45 promoters who hold 70 percent of the stake in the company and plans to raise 30 percent of its paid up capital from the general public within one year of operation. Among the directors of the Bank’s Board are Ganesh Bahadur Gurung (social activist), Rajendra Bataju (businessman), Krishna Bahadur Thapa (former employee of Nepal Rastra Bank) and Pritamman Buddhacharya (business person). According to Baniya, since his bank has small paid up capital, it would focus on providing better service to the customers instead of competing on interest rate. At the same time the bank would focus on relationship marketing and cater primarily to the needs of small industries, says Baniya.
Upon inauguration, the bank announced setting up of a special fund for environmental protection in Pokhara city as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.
New Stock Market Rules
Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON) has announced three new regulations governing the securities market by resolving the dispute among the Board, the Stock Exchange and the Securities Brokers on the proposed transaction fees and commissions.
Effective from November 5, one of the new regulations is related with the brokers, dealers and market makers while the other two are related with the SEBON and Stock Exchange operator.
The major effect of the new rules is reduction in the brokerage commission to between 1 and 0.7 percent of the transaction value. Earlier this rate was between 1 and 1.5 percent. Similarly, the new rules have fixed that the brokers should collect 0.015 percent of the transaction value from the buyers and sellers as a contribution to the SEBON to help the regulator become self-reliant. The implementation of the rules drafted months ago under the new Securities Transactions Act was delayed due to failure to reach an agreement among the stock exchange, SEBON and the brokers on the rate of this contribution to SEBON.
The implementation of the rules has paved the way for Nepal Stock Exchange to go ahead with its plan to add the number of brokers. According to the stock exchange officials, they will start the process immediately after the Tihar festivals to add 27 brokers to the existing number of 23. After the recently introduced floor automation, the trading floor of the stock exchange is said to have a capacity to accommodate 50 brokers in total.
Sri Lankan Men, Indian Women Grab the Titles Surya Nepal 9th SAARC Golf Championship
Sri Lanka won the Men’s Title in the Surya Nepal 9 th SAARC Golf Championship played at Le Meridien Gokarna Forest Golf Resort by winning two matches and halving one to cumulate 5 points against Nepal ’s 1 in the men’s finals.
In the ladies category, India took the medal home while Sri Lanka ended up the second leaving Pakistan and Nepal in the third and fourth place respectively.
In one of the men’s finals matches, Tisa Chandradasha of Sri Lanka defeated Nepal ’s Tashi Ghale easily after 12 holes. The most exciting was the match between Rupak Acharya of Nepal and K Prabagaran of Sri Lanka which was squared. In the other match, Mithun Parera of Sri Lanka defeated Rabi Khadka of Nepal .
In the Losers’ Match between Pakistan , Bangladesh , India and Bhutan ; the winning team was Bangladesh with an aggregate score of 1 under par.
In the friendship cup match, Wang Yi scored 39 stableford points to win the championship. In the ladies category of friendship match, Kesang Lama and Eu Hazur Thapa were tied at 32 stableford points however Kesang bagged the title on account of better back nine. Min Gu Cho got both longest drive and closest to the pin award. The championship of team managers was grabbed by Nepal ’s Rabindra Shrestha.
