Pharmacists demand level field, not protection

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Aug 12 - Pharmacists have said that they are not in need of protection but want level field to compete with foreign companies, especially Indian drug companies whose productions have dominated the local market.

They complained that the local pharmaceuticals are unnecessarily taxed, but the foreign companies while exporting drugs to Nepal have to pay a minimum tax.

Pradeep Jung Pandey, President of APPON, said that while importing drugs one has to pay just 3 per cent customs duty, but 16 per cent tax including Value Added Tax (VAT) is charged to us while exporting drugs and it is very discouraging. Therefore, the government should resolve the problem if it is committed to foster local industries.

He also asked the government to provide soft loans to pharmaceuticals and to help in transferring technology to enhance their competitiveness. He also expressed worries over the use of 21,000 plus brands of foreign drugs and 1000 local brands in a small country with a population of only 23 million.

"Government should create conducive environment to the growth of the private drug companies by taking them into confidence, the private pharmaceuticals would then be able to vie with foreign company," said Mahendra Bahadur Amatya, former president of Association of Pharmaceutical Producers of Nepal (APPON).

Participants of a reception program hosted in honour of newly appointed Health Minister Sharat Singh Bhandari, expressed the views that Nepalese pharmaceuticals are lagging behind due to a lack of infrastructure as only 39 per cent of its capacity is being used at present.

Nepalese pharmaceuticals contribute 1.2 billion rupees to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually, but Rs 3 billion flies out of the country in the import of drugs every year.

Even after about 30 years in the business, the local pharmaceuticals meet only 27 per cent of the total demand of drugs in the country.

However, G Narayan Bahadur Chhetri, acting general secretary of APPON, expressed the hope that the government’s budgetary provision of requiring all government offices to buy locally produced drugs would encourage the domestic industry.

The participants also urged physicians to prescribe local medicine to encourage the local drug producers thereby helping the nation to gradually achieve self-reliance in medicines.

Dr Asfaq Shekh, Director General at the Department of Drug Administration (DDA) said that the government has made a new provision of buying essential drugs directly from the producers, especially in the case of foreign medicine, to ensure the quality of drugs.

"The Department currently has manpower only to analyze 25,000 types of drugs currently, but we need to analyze at least 40,000 kinds of drugs given the present situation," he said.

He also accepted that there has been occurred a serious mistake in the field of drugs as the government went for quality control of drugs before bringing out a policy and formulating an Act.

He said that the government is committed to ensure the quality of drugs given its seriousness and has initiated action against six industries for not maintaining quality. He also pointed out a need of establishing a separate inspectorate for the quality control of drugs as the production is ever increasing.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary at the Ministry of Health, Mahendra Nath Aryal said that the government has introduced new drugs regulation which is expected to help the local pharmaceuticals go ahead.

There are 40 local pharmaceuticals at present and they produce 59 per cent of 273 essential drugs. They are self-dependent on 35 highly important drugs and all the producers are following the Good Manufacture Practice (GMP) as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), it was also informed in the program.

On the same occasion, Health Minister Bhandari said that the government was ready to extend any support to the drugs producers if they commit to produce 50 per cent medicine of the total consumption over a period of five years.

Handicraft exports register a bitter slump

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Aug 12 - Slide in the export of pasmina in the second half of the last fiscal year, coupled with a decline in the export of hide and woolen products, among others, has pulled down the aggregate handicraft exports of the fiscal year 2000/01.

According to statistics provided by Handicraft Association of Nepal (HAN), handicraft items worth Rs 6.82 billion was exported in the last fiscal year. However, the handicraft export figure for the fiscal year 1999/00 had stood at Rs 7.16 billion.

While exports of pasmina in the previous fiscal year touched Rs 5.64 billion, the figures last year were less by over Rs 20 million. HAN has attributed low international demand for pasmina as the main reason behind its fall.

Apart from pasmina, fall in the export of woolen products also contributed to a fall in the total handicraft exports. Woolen products’ exports in the last fiscal year slumped by over 50 per cent as compared to the previous year’s exports.

Woolen products worth Rs 591.2 million were exported in the previous fiscal year. However, woolen products worth only Rs 243.9 million were exported last fiscal year. The item slipped to the third largest handicraft exportable item last year from the previous year’s second position.

Though hide exports climbed up to the second position, from the third, total hide exports in the last fiscal year was only Rs 245.5 million, against the previous year’s 256.6 million.

Deceleration in the export growth in the first eleven months of the last fiscal year is another reason for a fall in the total handicraft exports. While aggregate exports in the previous year had grown at almost 40 per cent, the growth rate last year was only 15 per cent.

Economy, finance and market

By Supa Upadhyay

Domestic money market:

The Average Weighted Discount Rate (AWDR) of 91-day Traeasury Bills (TBs) dipped further significantly by 27 basis points to 4.54 percent on high demand. The rupee was traded higher at 98.90 and lower at 98.87 for 91-day TBs. The NRB had received 44 bids worth NPR 2630 million against the notified amount NPR 670 million for 91 day-TBs. The Repo rate for Member Banks and Institutions have been quoted at 5.0443 for the trading days August 07 to August 13, 2001. The outright purchase facility for banks, institutions and other on TBs is also available. In the regular weekly auction, the NRB is going to issue 91-day TBs worth NPR 700 million on August 14, 2001,

Domestic capital market:

This week, share market witnessed some improvement trend as some banks published their satisfactory performance for the F.Y. 2057/58.

The NEPSE Index-100 opened higher at 321.12 remined at the same range up to third trading days but it slipped in forth days and eventually closed lower at 319.49, netting a gain of 2.57 points. This week, trading was estimated at 40707 shares valued NPR 18.9 million compared to 995924 shares valued NPR 132.0 million of previous week. Commercial Bank and Finance companies shared 70.79 percent and 24.38 percent respectively of total traded amount. The Index of Hotel sectors, Commercial Bank and other sector was improved while Finance/Insurance sector and Production Sector were lost. Business sector remained unchanged at their previous prices. This week, brokers had quoted the prices of 55 companies on the trading board but only 38 companies were traded. Out of thirty-eight traded companies, seventeen companies improved, eleven companies lost and ten traded companies remained unchanged at their previous prices. Nepal Merchant Bank & Finance, Bank of Kathmandu, and Siddhartha Finance registered the first, the second and the third most traded companies trading 7770, 6474 and 5410 shares respectively. Share of NIC Bank, Nepal B’desh Bank, Bank of Katmandu, Himalayan Bank, Siddhartha Finance, Nepal Housing Development, Nepal SBI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Nepal Merchant Bank & Finance were able to trade in all five working days. Likewise, Everest Bank, Necon Air, Lumbini Finance, and Taragaon Regency Hotel, Nepal Indosuez Bank and HISEF were able to trade in four working days.

Forex round-up:

The sterling lost against the dollar over the week while, the EUR and JPY strengthened against the dollar. The dollar pinned near multi-month lows against Euro around 0.8923 and within half a yen of two-month lows against yen around 121.98. Dealers attribute dollar’s slide to continue pessimism about the U.S. economy after release of the Fed’ s Beige Book on Wednesday and technical selling in thin, summer markets.

Analysts said the dollar’s slide started after the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book painted a bleak picture of the U.S. economy earlier in the week and renewed warnings by US manufacturers that the strength of the dollar was hurting the US economy.

The INR and the NPR remained unchanged against the dollar over the week.

LSA helds seminar in Capital

Post Report

KATHMANDU, August 12 - The official representative of The London School of Accountancy (LSA) organized one day seminar here today informing about the procedural simplifications on the enrollment of Nepali students in the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) course.

Inaugurating the seminar, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Secretary General of the main opposition CPN- UML pointed over a common tendency of Nepalis showing something or speaking much rather than labouring hard and said "It is good to create the opportunity for Nepali students to be educated in London." He stressed upon the need for the governments’ support and cooperation for such institutions.

Deepak Pandey, Official Representative of LSA for Nepal and India said " With the enrollment of the Nepali students in the LSA, our effort would be to provide affordable quality education." He also informed that scholarships and other financial subsidies are also provisioned in the school for the Nepali students.

At present, 63 Nepali students are enrolled with the LSA in the ACCA and other courses. It was also informed that many of the Nepali students presently undergoing LSA education are doing well and are ahead of other nationals.

The ACCA is a professional chartered accountancy course and the students holding this degree are said to have high international demand in the accountancy organizations and in the business, industry and public sector.

Varun Beverages distributes prizes on Pepsi-cola

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Aug 12 - Varun Beverages (Nepal) Pvt. Ltd., the producer of Pepsi soft drink, distributed the prize money to the winners of "mero number auchha" contest that was organized by the company from 1st May to 10th August.

Tulsi Bhattarai, the Chief District Officer of Kathmandu District and Kapil Agrawal, Director of the Company jointly gave away the prize money to 99 different individuals.

The prize consisted of four first prizes of Rs 500,000 each and 100 second prizes of Rs 10 thousand each. However, as the company didn’t receive any claim for one of its 1st prize and one second prize, the distributed prize amount was less than the expected amount that equalled to Rs 2.49 million.

In the program, three individuals received a purse of Rs 500,000 each and 99 others received a purse of Rs 10 thousand each. The cash in the first prize is said to be the largest prize amount distributed in Nepal in this type of program.

Cabin restaurants to be banned

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Aug 12 - Janasena Nepal, Nepal Workers committee has decided to ban all cabin restaurants in the Capital city from August 31.

The committee has appealed to all the nationals to support their campaign saying that such restaurants are found charging higher sums to general customers and also exploiting the women workers physically.

They have started their campaign with the slogan "Let’s make the restaurants hassles free and enhance more quality service by closing the illegal cabins." In the campaign, Nepal Workers Committee has asked for cabin-less restaurants, to follow the labor acts, to release the women workers from the work after 7 pm and to introduce easy and quality service.

The sources said that all restaurants would be informed about this campaign during Aug 17 to 30 and then all the restaurants that do not follow the request would be strictly banned from August 31.

Nepal Police, for a long time has been trying to close such restaurants and also has raid some of these restaurants to control ‘unseen’ activities inside the cabin. It’s allegedly said that sexual type of activities are carried out inside the cabins. However, due to feeble monitoring system, those illegal acts are still supposed to be done since the police-effort has not been much effective.

Departmental chief elected

Post Report

KATHMANDU, Aug 12 - Ravi Bhakta Shrestha, the newly elected President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), nominated Krishna Prasad Tamrakar as the chief of the FNCCI-Agro Enterprises Center.

In a press release received here today, Suraj Baidhya, the ex-officio member of the FNCCI will coordinate the newly formed board.

Agro Enterprises Center was established 10 years ago, after the agreement between the Federation and the USAID for developing and commercializing the agro enterprises. So far, the center has extended its service to 31 districts, says the press release.

The release also states that Sidheshwor Kumar Singh, the president of FNCCI-International Relation committee left Kathmandu Saturday to participate in the Asia Pacific Enterprise Summit 2001 that is being held from Aug 12 to 14 in Banglore, India.

The summit is being organized with the coordination of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industries, Asia Pacific Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries and ZDH Partnership Program, Singapore/Germany, says the release. The summit is aimed to enhance business relationships among the participating countries and also to provide country-wise One-Stop service.