Private sector’s role stressed

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KATHMANDU, Dec 14 - Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deupa has said that in the era of the globalisation and liberalisation, private sector should enhance its role to improve competitiveness and efficiency to withstand with the emerging challenges in the international market.

Addressing a function organised to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Trade Promotion Centre (TPC) here today, Premier Deuba stressed that the private sector should play a lead role in the development of trade and export business of the country. "The government cannot do everything as it has limited it role to only as a facilitator. It is the private sector that should actively involve in expanding trade and export business," he said.

He also pointed out the trade deficit of Nepal is increasing with almost all the countries and urged the private sector to boost its export to bridge the existing trade deficit by enhancing quality and competitiveness.

Speaking on the same occasion, Purna Bahadur Khadka, Minister of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MICS), emphasised on the need of a long-term planning for a sustainable development of the export oriented industries of the country.

Referring to the ongoing accession process of Nepal into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), he said that Nepali entrepreneurs should be ready to face tougher competition in the global arena.

"Nepali businessmen should immediately take concrete steps to minimise the threats that WTO-membership would invite. The only the way to do so is to improve quality of the products by enhancing competitiveness by adopting cost effective technologies," he said.

Referring to the various measures recently taken by the government to improve its service delivery systems, he said that the new mechanism would greatly help the business community to get necessary services quickly in a simple manner.

Prakash Bahadur Gurung, Assistant Minister of the MICS, stressed upon the need to develop import substitution industries in the country. He said though the trade sector has expanded impressively after the government adopted liberal economic policies, all concerned should make sincere efforts for the diversification of exportable products.

Appreciating the role of TPC in developing foreign trade of Nepal, he urged the staff and trade experts at the centre to make more efforts to solve the current problems of the export-oriented industries.

Bhanu Prasad Archarya, Secretary at the MICS, said that tumbling export in the recent months is a worrisome fact. He urged both the centre and the private sector to work more effectively to curb the dwindling export trend.

He was of the view that limited exportable goods along with limited markets is the prime cause of such problems and stressed that products as well as market diversification is the need of hour. He also assured the business community that the government is ready to extend the maximum possible co-operation to the private sector in that direction.

Rabi Bhakta Shrestha, President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), highlighted the role of the TPC in strengthening the competitiveness of the exportable items.

He also welcomed the recent government decision to establish a Board of Investment, which he hoped would come up with innovative measures to boost the current sluggish economy. He also appealed to all quarters of the society to discourage industrial unfriendly activities for the healthy growth of the industries.

Dev Bahadur Rokaya, Executive Director at the TPC, highlighted the various roles played by the centre in promoting export business. He also stated some of the problems faced by the centre and urged the government to pay its attention towards addressing the problems.

Browse your phone bill on Internet

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KATHMANDU, Dec 14 – Are you tired of walking to the telephone tariff collection counters just to collect monthly statement of your phone bill? If you are, then there is good news for you.

Now you can find out what amount you have to cough up without visiting your respective tariffs collection counters. But what you need is a computer and an access to Internet. The rest is simple.

All you would need to do is to visit the web site ntc.net.np of Nepal Telecommunications Corporation (NTC). In order to browse your monthly telephone bill in detail or in a nutshell, depending on your requirement, you would, however, need to get an authenticate key from the head office counter.

The next step is to click on "How To Register" box and to give the information sought. Say, if you need to browse the bill for the month of Kartik - type it in the box adjacent to Month, type the 2058 in another box abutted to Year and the information you are seeking would come in a zap.

After this you need to type your phone number which should begin with 1. For instance your number is 345679, you have to type 1345679 in a box where enter your telephone number is written. Then you have to enter the subscriber’s name exactly as mentioned in the paper bill.

However, you cannot make any payment through this facility. It is only meant for browsing. The state-owned monopoly in telecom services began providing information on subscribers’ telephone statement, detail of monthly telephone bills, in the Internet, with a view to facilitate its customers.

However, the facility is being provided to the customers of the corporation only within the Kathmandu Valley for now. The NTC plans to extend its services of allowing customers to browse through its monthly bills across the kingdom gradually.

Hiranya Kumar Bhattarai, spokesman at NTC, said that the corporation began providing detail information on the monthly telephone bills of its subscribers in the Kathmandu valley last week.

"We have introduced the new system with the objective of facilitating our customers. Now customers of the capital do not have to go to the respective billing counter of our office scattered all over the Valley", he said.

"This will not only save time of our customers, but also help in calculating the amount they have to pay so that they do not need to carry extra money. Particularly, it will be more useful to offices, as they make payment through cheque", he added.

Currently there are 17 billing counters of the NTC to collect telephone tariffs in the Kathmandu valley. With the latest innovation, the billing counters are likely to be less crowded in days to come.

That’s not all. NTC is making necessary preparation to introduce e-cards for tariffs collection. And that would further ease the clearance of tariff.

"The NTC is planning to introduce electronic cards for the receipt of telephone tariffs in the future," confirmed Bhattarai.

And if that is not all, the NTC is going to put its conventional telephone directory on the internet in the near future, according to spokesman Bhattarai.

Finland to provide assistance

KATHMANDU, Dec 14 (RSS) – The government of Finland has agreed to provide a grant assistance of Finnish mark 5,960,320 (approximately Rs 67 million) to His Majesty’s Government for the production of Database for Digital Maps and Production of Orthophotos in relation to the Census 2001 Mapping Project for Housing and Population.

The project is aimed at assisting in producing the required census planning and enumeration area line-maps for the census 2001 covering all the populated areas of Nepal including the zonal, district, village development committee and municipal areas, and digital database and orthophoto maps for post-enumeration mapping in Geographical Information System (GIS). The mapping component will further contribute to strengthen digital map production capability in the survey department.

The project will also strengthen digital mapping capacity and lay the foundation for the establishment of multi-purpose digital database in Nepal. The long term objective of the project is to enable His Majesty’s Government of Nepal in maintaining accurate and appropriate knowledge of demographic and socio-economic profile of the country to support the formulation of development policies at central and local levels.

An agreement to this effect was signed and exchanged between his majesty’s government of Nepal and the government of Finland at the ministry of finance on Thursday.

Madhav Prasad Ghimire, joint secretary at the ministry of finance and Asko Lukkainen, Charge D’Affaires of Finland signed the agreement on behalf of their respective governments.

His majesty’s government has expressed its sincere appreciation and thanks to the government of Finland for its continued interest and support in the socio-economic development of Nepal.