Preparation for WTO accession not complete

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 27 - Even after more than two years Nepal has applied for the membership of World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, the government has not yet completed its strategic preparation for its accession to WTO, the global rule-based trading organization.

Although the government claims to end the accession process within four rounds of bilateral negotiations, it is most unlikely that the process would be completed given the present pace of preparation of the government. The first round of negotiations was held last May in Geneva.

Government officials had claimed in 1998, while applying for WTO membership, that the accession process would be completed by mid-2000, which was later extended to July 2001.

However, confusion surrounding the binding tariff levels has hindered prompt accession to WTO. Since Nepal already has customs tariff lower than what WTO rules calls for, she in the first Working Party meeting in May, had contemplated to increase the rates so as to bind on the higher side. However, the justification asked for the difference between applied and proposed binding rates seems to have delayed the process.

Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies, Ram Krishna Tamrakar, then had assured to raise his voice for higher tariff level before taking up WTO membership.

Though the minister denied divulging the proposed rates considering probable impact on market, it was said that the proposed tariff ranged from 35 to 80 percent. In addition, unbound rates for some items are believed to have been proposed. However, almost three months have passed since binding rates were proposed, the final decision from the government still remains pending, which is delaying the overall process.

"The government is readying itself for the next round of negotiations. It has to decide on a number of issues relating to binding tariff in particular," said Dr Govind Prasad Regmi, Chief of the WTO Cell, talking to The Kathmandu Post.

However, the lag in government's preparation has cast doubt upon the possibility of holding bilateral negotiations with Nepal's trading partners, including European Union, United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand on September 19, invited by WTO Secretariat, Geneva.

"WTO Secretariat has invited us for bilateral negotiations, but due to lack of preparations, we are trying to defer the meeting," said Regmi. The bilateral meeting is to take up various issues in WTO, not only relating to binding tariff but also on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), among others.

Trade Unions working to form apex body

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 27 - Two major trade unions, General Federation of Nepalese Trade Union (GeFONT) and Nepal Trade Union Congress (NTUC) have held their second round of national level talks aimed at forming an apex trade union.

Ineffective implementation of Labour Act, Policy, rules and regulations gave birth to the concept of forming the apex body of trade labourers. Safeguard of rights, well being and interest of trade-related labourers prompted these two leading trade unions to move forward unitedly to ensure better future of the working class.

Some leading labour unions abroad are also merging these days for broader interests of the working class people. LO and FTF of Sweden, LO and TCO of Denmark have established unified councils while AFL and CIO of the United States of America have formed a unified union which have been successful in enhancing their bargaining capacity thereby ensuring the rights of labourers.

Due to division among unions here (almost all political parties in existence in Nepal have their own trade unions), the bargaining power of labourers has weakened. Realizing this, the leading trade unions have initiated talks to constitute a single apex union of the labourers, says Ramji Kunwar, Secretary of NTUC.

Bishnu Rimal, General Secretary of GeFONT, informed that during their preliminary round of talks, they presented the structure of the would-be apex union of the trade labourers.

"We have proposed `National Labour Senate-Nepal' which will have one representative each from labour organizations and five from each trade union federations. The Senate will at least make comprehensive supervision of trade unions, constitute an administrative board for the management of the Senate through multilateral agreement," said Rimal.

However, NTUC has proposed to establish an authorized union at every enterprise and to form similar types of unions at the national level.

Discussions were also held on representation to the proposed unified single union on the basis of member strength and to form executive body either through election or in succession.

Rimal also informed that GeFONT wants to incorporate all trade unions in the apex body but NTUC has maintained that it is ready to include smaller trade unions except for Democratic Confederation of Nepalese Trade Union (DECONT), a parallel union formed by the dissidents that split from NTUC.

NEPSE Index surge, share trading high

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Aug 27 - Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) Index registered a record growth of 27.91 points within five trading days this week.

While the opening index on the first day of trading on Monday was 389.03, the closing index touched 416.94 at the end of trading on Friday. The surge in the index on Friday alone stood at 10.08 points.

On a group-wise basis, the index for commercial bank group rose from 445.97 to 492.04 this week. Similarly, each of the indices for manufacturing and processing, trading and other groups increased from 333.11 to 336.01, 121.38 to 123.94 and 322.71 to 323 respectively.

On the other hand, the index for finance and insurance declined from 309.27 to 306, while the index for hotel group remained constant at 343.68.

Group-wise trading information for the week revealed the participation of commercial banks at 96.30 percent. Similarly, the participation of manufacturing and processing group stood at 0.48 percent, hotel group 0.77 percent, finance group 1.60 percent, insurance group 0.55 percent, trading group 0.14 and others at 1.16 percent.

NEPSE trading bounced up this week due to a significant increase in trading of shares of Bank of Kathmandu. Not only the number of shares traded increased significantly but also the value and number of share transactions.

During the week, 24190 shares of the bank worth Rs 31.69 million was traded as against the previous value of Rs 5.15 million. Bank of Kathmandu topped the NEPSE floor in terms of number of share traded and its value.

On the basis of number of transactions, the week's trading, however, was dominated by Nepal Industrial and Commercial Bank (NIC Bank) that stood at 242.

As a whole, in a total 879 transactions, 90561 shares worth Rs 63.14 million was traded in the NEPSE floor. The statistics last week was 28179 shares valued at Rs 16.33 million in total 440 transactions.

During the week, shares of 43 companies were traded.

Companies whose shares were traded in all the five trading days last week were Nepal Arab Bank (Rs 1615-1610), Nepal Grindlays Bank (Rs 2250-2525), Nepal SBI Bank (Rs 1431-1550), Nepal Bangladesh Bank (Rs 1765-2050), Bank of Kathmandu (Rs 1250-1450), NIC Bank (Rs 456-571), People's Finance Ltd (Rs 290-300), Everest Insurance (Rs 458-455), Everest Bank (Rs 1188-1426), Himalayan Bank (Rs 1850-2100) and Nepal Indosuez Bank (Rs 1700-2000).

Companies whose shares were traded one day only include Nepal Lever (230000/100), Soaltee Hotel (19950/133), Premier Insurance (2450/10), Neco Insurance (2690/10), Pashimanchal Finance (10000/50) and Bottlers Nepal (6050/10).