BFA marches on

By BINOD P BISTA

The Boao Forum for Asia (BFA- based in Boao, China), the newly established Asian Regional Economic Organization, designed along a similar concept of World Economic Forum (based in Davos, Switzerland), but distinct in terms of its actors and focus, is well poised to take off. After being inaugurated in the sagacious presence of Asian thinkers and true leaders of the people, President Jiang Zemin, the late Majesty King Birendra, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, among others, the First Annual Summit is taking place in the beautiful city of Boao, Hainan Province of PRC on 12-13 April, 2002.

It is expected that an assemblage of 1000 personalities, including leaders, governments, academicians and businesses from all over Asia and outside will take part in this important meeting. Due care has been exercised by the organizers to make this event significant to Asian businesses as well as governments which are seriously pursuing all round sustainable development for their peoples.

In the month of November, last year, BFA convened a special meeting of experts and scholars from Asia in the city of Haikou, Hainan Province, with the purpose of working out the theme, topics, and modality of the Annual Summit. The workshop was presided over by distinguished Professor GAO Shangquan, Chairman of the Chinese Research Society for Restructuring Economic Systems, and President of China Institute for Reform and Development. The theme, topics and sub-topics agreed by the workshop participants were further consulted with the key representatives of 26 initial countries of BFA, Nepal being one of them, and key business representatives of Asia, before being finalized.

The theme of the Summit is proposed to be "New Century, New Challenges, A New Asia: Economic Development and Cooperation". It is further planned to hold high level discourses on three distinct topics, considered Asia-specific, and they are: Global economic trends and their impact on Asia, Asia’s economic growth through regional cooperation, and China’s entry into the WTO and the economic development of Asia.

Besides a good attendance of leaders from Asia, including Premier Zhu Rongji, deliberating on Plenary session, it is also expected that acknowledged experts from academic, business and other fields within and outside of Asia, will be intensely discussing sub-topics such as free-trade areas, monetary cooperation, sub-regional cooperation, manufacturing and export competitiveness. The two-day Summit meeting is slated to cover wide ranging but pertinent issues from restructuring of financial system to environment and sustainable development. Planned discussion luncheons are expected to deal with country outlook on: Japan, India, Indonesia, China, Korea and the Philippines. In all, it is going to be a full and a serious meeting aimed at strengthening development, particularly economic development, of countries in Asia through regional economic cooperation in the areas of investment, trade and technology.

Prior to the Summit, full members of BFA will be approving the Charter of BFA in their general meeting of members (GMM). Members will be electing a board of directors from among them, which will be responsible to steer the works of BFA in the years to come with the aid of BFA’s Secretariat. The original plan to elect foundation members, required to contribute US $ 500,000.00, was found to be less than ideal, both in terms of the amount of contribution and the issue of uniform representation by all members. Later, after careful scrutiny as well as interaction among the key representatives and other experts, it was decided to provide for two ‘initial members’ from each participating country, and also the contribution amount from ‘foundation members’ was reduced by one half to US $ 250,000.00. This action alone provides credence to BFA in terms of its flexibility, good sense and timely action. Dr Xiang Zhang is the current ‘acting secretary general’ of BFA.

BFA has approved two initial members from Nepal, Ambica Shrestha representing Dwarika’s Village Hotel (Pvt) Ltd, and Bishnu Raj Adhikari representing Kathmandu College of Management Limited. Both institutions are well known in Nepal. Apart from their core businesses, these organizations have contributed to the development of cultural heritage of Nepal and human resource development respectively.

In spite of open invitation to Nepali businesses to participate singularly or collectively by becoming a ‘foundation member’, the response has been completely blank so far.

There is also a provision to become ‘ordinary members’ by contributing US $ 10,000.00 by individuals, entities and organizations, who can take part in the meetings. For ease in registration and other matters, online information is provided at BFA Website at: www.Boaoforum.org. The full members (foundation members, initial members and honorary members) will have the rights, including but not limited to, consult BFA experts, scholars and business elite for an "enterprise diagnosis" of itself; commission BFA to conduct marketing survey and to provide consultation on business expansion programs; to have direct access to interactions with government, business and academic leaders.

The ordinary members shall have the rights to seek business opportunities through the established networks of BFA, to commission BFA to search for talents and to conduct training programs, among others. Presently, honorary membership has been set aside for persons and organizations who have provided full support, financial as well as other logistics and manpower, to the creation and establishment of BFA.

Nepal’s pre-established quota of four foundation members will lapse if Nepali businesses sit on the line and watch. As BFA is a non-profit making, non-governmental organization, its income source comes from the contributions it receives from its members, particularly the foundation members. So, it was necessary to allow entities and organizations from other countries within Asia to fill the seats (reserved for each country) left vacant for an extended period of time. It was agreed to let the process continue in a fair and transparent manner by following the commonly accepted first come first serve basis after the initial gestation period which ended in December last year.

Jungle of buildings

By GHANASHYAM OJHA

For the past few years, a string of new buildings has been under construction in the capital. At times, one gets the impression that a fierce house building competition is going on among the Kathmanduits. Well, it must be good news to the Kathmandu Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) because the greater the number of buildings the more will be its revenues. It may also be ear-soothing news to the politicians as they count the number of their voters with the number of new buildings. It helps raise their power at such a crucial hour where politicians are losing public faith.These multi-coloured buildings sometimes can be of great help for the people to locate places. People can give directions of their houses to their kith and kin taking help of any building facing their houses.

"Well, my house is just behind a red coloured one-storey building, well, it’s just to the right of the green one …. " these are common terms of giving directions in a community.

But building skyscrapers overnight sometimes, might pose great problems. My point is, I don’t have any personal grudges against those who erect such buildings in the capital. Neither am I as exulted as the politicians and the KMCwallas. However, such buildings are nuisance for passers-by. I have made many twists and turns in finding out my friend’s rooms in the valley as the buildings they had identified for direction to reach their rooms had already been replaced by tall buildings. New buildings, built in different corners of the valley, have formed a maze field that is difficult to go through.

My house is just behind the pink-coloured one-storey house. This is how I used to give my friends the direction of the house. The direction to reach my room was comfortable for most of my friends and relatives as the pink-coloured one-storey house was conspicuous and could be seen from the main road. But the tiny one-storey house in less than a month was replaced with a five-storey one. The landlord in the meantime changed the colour of the building too. The building where I stayed was almost overshadowed by the biggest one that stood in front of it. I came to realize how much difficult it posed to them only when I began receiving phone calls from the visitors and I had to rush out to the street to receive them.

However, this is not only my case. With the rapid construction and demolition of buildings many people might have been reeling in this ever changing city.

Harnessing dry dollar with distinction

By DR GOPAL KRISHAN sIWAKOTI

Travelling remains a vagabond urge inherent in every human being even at the dawn of the 21st century. In the beginning, people used to endeavor in search of food, shelter and protection and to fulfill their basic demands.

With the passage of time man became social, and he started travelling to various regions for trade, pilgrimage and recreation. So, travelling from one area to another led to the inception of the terminology "tourism". In the Himalayan belt such activities can be expressed in different ways such as through trade, pilgrimage, migration to the summer capital, holiday resort, adventure, exploration and so on. The Himalayas have remained a treasure of living and non-living things.

Undoubtedly, the progress made in the West by industrialisation has saturated the aesthetical needs of humans. The people there no longer live in the primary human ways, but rather fulfill the wishes of a consumer society in order to live and survive. With it has cropped up an ever-increasing feeling of dissatisfaction. Progress and development have been so fast that these countries have developed into a purely consumer society. Machinery has taken over much of the people’s lives in the western world, which has caused great boredom and dissatisfaction. Consequently when they arrive in Nepal they get a chance to see a natural way of lifestyle with very less dependence on machinery. The primary needs of humans are overlooked as people have become more and more consumer oriented. As a result, people from the West are becoming more dissatisfied with their materialistic life and avaricious attitude, hence forgetting the basic human needs.

Nepal, a country of unique mosaic of green landscape and diverse cultural heritage, situated in the lap of mighty Himalayas is known as "The Land of Mt. Everest" and "The Land of Lord Buddha" throughout the world. Nepal, possessing remarkable latitudinal variations ranging from 100 metres from sea level to 8,848 metres in the Northern Himalayan crest line and encompassing a myriad of cultural diversity embedded in the remarkably diverse landscape with sky-kissing peaks and thereby providing habitats to unique and rare flora and fauna, gives itself a distinct privilege of being called as the land of "Yak and Yeti". It is truly a paradise on the earth. The snow clad peaks, breathtaking landscapes, fantastic eye catching geographical contour and ever smiling hospitality of its people will attract tourists.

The land is proud of its great civilization created by its hardworking people, its rich culture, tradition, heritage and diverse livelihood. Tourists thus find that lifestyle in Nepal is apparently happier and better as long as people here have enough foodstuff to eat and a roof over their heads. Dissatisfaction of life is one of the greatest evils of the western society. People today do not strive for increasing material well-being but rather look for a job which gives them creative, spiritual, social and emotional satisfaction. Nepal, in this context seems to be one of the few places where the lifestyle has changed at a very slow pace over the past 200 years.

Tourism is now making inroads into the deep interiors of the Himalayas. Tourists go there to visit shrines, for mountaineering, trekking, watching flora and fauna and indulging in game shooting and for other purposes.

Trekking, rafting, mountain climbing, hiking, bird watching and safari once the forte of the Western tourists are now capturing the imagination of the East as well. Despite the significant progress made in the tourism sector, there are many areas which could not develop because of geographic reasons like heavy snowfall, cold and draughty climate, restricted zone and landlocked areas and, therefore, remained cut off or isolated. In other words, they remained backward in comparison to places which have developed under the impact of modernity. These are now growing as western tourist attractions, because one may still find here the tradition and culture in their original form which attract the tourists. The Khumbu region, Muktinath, Kanchanjungha region, and some other remote places are few centres now developing as western tourist resorts. Mt Kailash and Man Sarovar have recently been opened to outsiders.

Tourism does not always necessarily bring fortune. Nepal is exposed to accelerating environmental changes. Although change is inevitable and desirable when it improves the living conditions of local inhabitants, a methodology of change must be found which is consistent with the preservation of unique flora and fauna, spectacular natural beauty, and distinctive culture of this area. An appraisal of various aspects of change reveals that tourism and economic development are creating disharmony in the ecosystem. The disturbances in the environment do not mean that we should arrest the change. Change should be accepted, and hence, instead of arresting the changes which are taking place in the mighty mountain chain that possesses immense potentials (i.e. in the form of hydel power, irrigation water, raw materials etc.), we must find out a systematic model of change while realising the latent potential for human welfare.With the rapid increase in population and its unending needs, we have squeezed scarce resources and made inroads into the mountains. Extension of plantation, agriculture development, building up hydro-electric power stations, construction of new roads and buildings are taking place at the cost of depleted cultivated areas in and around the mountain towns of the country. The Namchhe Bazaar for example, in turn, will be unable to accommodate abrupt changes.

Since the tempo of development has to keep up with the help of advanced technology, the only realistic solution to the environmental problem lies in setting apart sizeable natural areas in representative habitats, to preserve some of our ecosystems in pristine condition as benchmarks for conservation of environment. The impact of unregulated tourism upon hydrosphere, lithosphere and atmosphere resources of the mountains must be seen as a potential threat to the indigenously preserved ecosystem. Preservation of indigenous culture and development of tourism are two different things. Encroachment is natural. Nevertheless, there is a need to carefully strike the balance between these two opposite components for a healthy and sustained tourism based on the principle of sustainable development. Any sudden influx of tourists from one region to another influences the host society by encroaching upon the original lifestyle and social behaviour.

Tourism is the largest source of harnessing "dry dollar" in Nepal.Unfortunately, the year 2002 Nepal saw a crushing blow to the tourism industry. The hijacking of the Indian Airlines, the Hrithik Roshan scandal, the unprecedented royal massacre and the Maoist insurgency leading to the state of emergency are the major setbacks to the tourism industry. It is pertinent that the health of the tourism industry be restored.