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| Kathmandu Tuesday March 26, 2002 Chaitra 13, 2058. |
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Copper industries closed down
By Bikas Thapa
BIRATNAGAR, March 25:Following the recent
renewal of the Nepal-India Trade Treaty that clamped quantitative restriction on the
export of copper products, among three other items, five major industries manufacturing
the metal braids have closed down, in addition to affecting over 40 small and cottage
industries producing handicraft items.
The renewed Treaty had set 7,500 tons as the
annual limit for the export of Nepali copper and related products to India on duty free
basis, in addition to 100,000 tons for vegetable ghee, 10,000 tons for acrylic yarn and
2,500 tons for zinc oxide. Concerned entrepreneurs claim that the terminology used in the
new Treaty has proved disastrous for the copper industry with their final products and raw
materials lying in their warehouses.
"The copper industries would not have been
affected to this extent had the protocol amending the Treaty not put
copper-related-products under the list of items facing quantitative restrictions,"
said Chairman of the Revenue Investigative Committee of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of
Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) Jagdish Prasad Rathi.
Fourteen industries across the country had
exported around 12,500 tons of copper twines to India last year. The industries that faced
closure recently due to the imposition of the quantitative restrictions include Hulas
Wires and Kalyani Udyog.
Mahendra Golchha of Hulas Wires said that
stoppage in the export of copper products after the renewal of the 1996 Treaty is the
cause for the closure of his industry. He said that with over Rs 1 billion investment in
the manufacture of copper wire alone, all the 14 industries will close down if the term
copper-related-products is not deleted from the protocol to the Treaty.
Similarly, Rathi said that since the domestic
market absorbs only around 20 tons of copper twines, all copper industries would face
closure if the Treaty were not changed. The manufacture of copper wires that stood at 13
thousand tons reached the same level in the first six months of the current fiscal year
alone.
Officer at the Biratnagar Customs Office Ram
Hari Aryal said that except vegetable ghee, none of the other items that faced
quantitative restrictions have been exported since the renewal of the Treaty.
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