NEPSE index keeps upward trend

By a Post Reporter

KATHMANDU, Sept 23 - After the continuous decline for a few weeks, the upsurge trend in NEPSE index that began since previous week continued last week also with an increase of 4.66 points to touch 422.01 points at the end of trading on Friday last week.

The stock market in the previous week had also made an impressive growth of 12.69 points and touched 411.58 points.

While the opening index on the first day of trading on Monday was 417.35 points, the closing index touched 422.01 points at the close of trading on Friday.

On a group-wise basis, the indices for commercial bank, manufacturing and processing group and finance and insurance group rose from 480.51.16 to 486.30 points, from 360.42 to 363.80 and 318.17 to 323.69 respectively. Similarly, the indices for other groups increased to 316.13 from 312.71 points recorded last week while the indices for hotel group and trading group remained unchanged at 364.07 and 121.28 points respectively.

Group-wise trading information for the week reveals that the participation of commercial banks was 86.55 percent. Similarly, the participation of manufacturing and processing group stood at 0.93 percent, hotel group 1.04, finance group 3.41, insurance group 6.23, trading group 0.08 and other group 1.76 percent.

Of the total 988 transactions last week, 73,000 shares worth over Rs 45.5 million were traded on Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) trading floor. Trading during the previous week stood at 58238 shares valued at Rs 36.66 million in 939 transactions.

Share trading during the last week in terms of number of transactions, was led by Nepal Industrial and Commercial Bank (NIC Bank) while in terms of share units, Alliance Insurance topped the list. Similarly, Bank of Kathmandu ranked first in terms of value of transaction. During last week, the number of transaction of NIC Bank was 165 while 10,450 units of shares of Alliance Insurance were traded on the floor of NEPSE. The value of transaction of Bank of Kathmandu during the week was Rs 7.03 million.

Fifty-three companies had quoted their price for trading in the floor of NEPSE last week, out of which, shares of only 47 companies were traded. NEPSE, during last week, remained open for all five days.

Companies whose shares were traded in all the four days this week include Nepal Bank (Rs 300 - 299), Nepal Arab Bank (Rs 1,575 - unchanged), Nepal Indosuez Bank (Rs 1,845 - 1,860), Nepal Grindlays Bank ( Rs 2,450 - unchanged), Nepal SBI Bank (Rs 1,720 - 1,861)), Nepal Bangladesh Bank (Rs 2,077 - 2,151), Everest Bank (Rs 1,450 - 1,520), Bank of Kathmandu (Rs 1,320 - 1,341) NIC Bank (Rs 576 - 572), Necon Air (Rs 220 - 223), Taragaon Regency Hotel (Rs 180 - unchanged).

Similarly, companies, whose shares were traded for only four days included United Insurance (Rs 281 - 280), Premier Insurance (Rs 244 - 240), Everest Insurance (Rs 475 - 476), Nepal Film Development Company (Rs 105 - unchanged) and NIDC Capital Market (Rs 740 - 700).

Likewise, companies whose shares were traded only one day include Nepal Lube Oil (10/5200), Yak &Yeti Hotel (30/18900), Nepal Life and General Insurance Company (10/10420), Nepal Share Markets (10/2350), Mahalaxmi Finance (50/9950), Yeti Finance (100/18500) and Samjana Finance (Rs 200/23000).

Thank god! No Latin American investors!

Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya is currently participating in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB)'s joint annual meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. Back in Kathmandu, no one expects any embarrassment for Acharya in Prague. Not because his performance has been fairly well; not because he can intelligently handle his meetings with the IMF-WB officials. It is only because they think Acharya is IMF-WB's blue-eyed boy, their henchman.

Labeling people is nothing new in Nepal: Bharat parasta (pro-Indian), America parasta,(pro-American), Durbar parasta (pro-palace)...are the common labels.

The danger with such labeling is that once you label someone, s/he is deemed unimportant to be taken seriously. You don't have to take  Acharya seriously if he talks about reform: after all he will be playing to the music of IMF-WB. And you even don't have to take seriously what IMF and WB are talking about. And, this is exactly what is happening in Nepal.

We hardly understand that it is a thing of bygone days that these institutions are easily written off as the capitalist institutions, which work for the perpetuation of dependency of the poor countries upon the rich ones. Do you remember the Neo-colonial Dependence Model of the 70s which said underdevelopment in the Third World is an externally induced phenomenon (and perpetuated by multilateral institutions like  the WB and IMF) as opposed to the argument that internal constraints such as insufficient saving and investment or lack of investment and skills? Three decades down the Neo-colonial Dependence Model, things look pretty different. The lesson of the past years is that underdevelopment in Third World is more associated with unequal distribution of land, unequal access to resources, meddling by local power elite, defunct institutions and above all rampant corruption.

It is simple to criticize these institutions but remember all the countries (barring Malaysia under eccentric Mahathir Mommhad) at the point of economic crisis scurry like chicken for rescue from IMF. However, it is not that all the prescriptions of IMF and WB have been right, they never will be. There is always a difference in value system, difference in social, political and historical background among the member countries, which demand for a constructive and intensive debate between the policy makers and IMF-WB officials.                   

But how many people do you think there are in Nepal who can (want to) sit across the table with the IMF-WB officials for a constructive dialogue? And is there anyone who can claim ownership in the institutions themselves when they try to persuade us to take ownership in the projects funded by them?     

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How much serious we are in policy dialogues or how seriously we want to take these multilateral institutions in policy decisions is best reflected in Nepal's nominee for IMF policy making body, which is expected to resume its responsibility by November. Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), about a month ago nominated an official who currently takes charges of administration in NRB and has never participated in critical policy issues. Now what can we expect from the official when he shares discussion table with competent counterparts in Washington?

It is not that NRB doesn't have competent officials but the selection criteria are otherwise. The selected official is from the western development region and has a connection to powerful former prime minister. What else would be better qualification for selection during former Governor Dr Tilak Rawal's tenure?

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Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpayee cracked a smart joke asking Bill Clinton, What would happen if Christopher Columbus had rightly landed in India, instead of America, which by default he discovered?

Clinton was not less smart to reply him that though Columbus missed India, America rightly discovered it. Probably he was referring to his discovery of India during his last visit. The post-cold war international power balance is pulling India and America closer, but the role of Information Technology (think of IT engineers in the Silicon Valley) is not less important. IT has made geography between the two largest democracies irrelevant in a real sense. And the inflow of capital and technology has really shrunk the world. As this tie strengthens,  happenings in Delhi and Washington will affect these societies more. Take for instance our own case, liberalization of investment in hydropower didn't only attract American investment to Nepal but it also tied our electricity tariff rate, though indirectly and partly to American inflation. (Remember, NEA has to revise its PPA with the American investors also taking into account the American inflation rate.) Thank god! We didn't liberalize hydropower sector in the 80s and invited Latin American investors with three-digit inflation back home!