Cease-fire ‘bonus’ ends, Nepse slips by 4 pts

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KATHMANDU, Feb 15 : After recording an upsurge for the two consecutive weeks, Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) index, a quick barometer to gauge investors’ confidence, slid by 3.97 point during the week.

The Nepse index, which was recorded at 215.18 on the opening day of the week, plunged to 211.21 point on the closing day Friday, states information provided by Nepse. Last week, the index had gone up by 3.84 point, while the week previous it had gone up by 4.51 points.

The recovery in the secondary market recorded during the last two weeks, largely due to cease-fire between the government and Maoists, geared reverse on the third week after major political parties drew differences with the government. "This affected the sensitive capital market and faltering investors’ confidence," said people knowledgeable to the matter.

The plunge in index, during the week, was due to poor performances of all the groups enlisted at Nepse, excluding hotels. Even the commercial bank group, which have strong bearing on the secondary market owing to the weight in carries, was the largest loser in the secondary market. The index of the group tumbled by over 6 points to 206.30 point from 213 point during the week, against the last week’s increment of about 5 points.

Other financial groups including the finance, the development bank and the insurance group too slid in their indices, albeit marginally. Indices of these groups went down to 229.43 point, 265.89 point and 254.53 point from 230.95 point, 266.28 point and 254.78 point during the week.

Last week, indices of the finance and the insurance group had slid by over 3 and 10 points respectively, while that of the development bank had gained 6 points.

The sole gainer of the stock market, hotels group, however, recorded upsurge in its index by over 5 points to touch 200.15 point on Friday, against 194.77 recorded on Monday.

Meanwhile, indices of the manufacturing, the trading and the other groups were maintained at 253.20 point, 92.85 point and 61.19 point respectively throughout the week. While the index of manufacturing had gone up last week, indices of trading and the other groups were maintained constant last week as well.

Unlike previous weeks, the insurance group captured the largest chunk of stock trading carried out at the Nepse floor. It occupied 43.27 per cent of the total transactions. The regular topper in stock trading, the commercial bank, captured mere 29.21 per cent followed by the finance group at 15.53 per cent.

These were followed by the development bank group (10.73 per cent), hotels group (1.05 per cent), manufacturing group (0.18 per cent) and others (0.02 per cent).

During the week, a total of 68,689 share units worth Rs 11.53 million were traded through 3,070 transactions, while last week, 80,444 share units were traded at Rs 27.27 million through 1,787 transactions.

Nepal Life Insurance Company topped the list of largest company recording the highest share trading both in terms of share units, transactions and value. A total of 33,130 shares of the company were traded through 2,058 transactions at Rs 4.24 million.

Shares of NB Bank, Everest Bank, Bank of Kathmandu, Nepal Life Insurance Company, Nepal Merchant Bank and Finance, United Finance, Nepal Development Bank and Development Credit Bank were traded all the five-day of the week.

Similarly, companies that saw their shares traded for four days include Himalayan Bank, Oriental Hotels and Lumbini Finance and Leasing.

Brick kilns demand tax exemption

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JANAKPUR, Feb 15 : Local brick manufacturers of the region have demanded with the government to scrape the newly imposed tax to brick business on the grounds of increasing losses. Such demand from brick manufacturers has come following the heavy damage to most of the brick kilns due to last month’s torrential rain.

According to Satya Narayan Yadav, President of Association of Janakpur Brick Manufacturers (AJBM), the brick entrepreneurs are not in the position to run their kilns without a concrete support from the government. "Since the local brick manufacturers are heavily suffering due to ballooning losses due mainly to adverse climatic condition, the government must withdraw various taxes to safeguard the entire business," said Yadav as quoted by a press statement issued by AJBM.

Apart from the last month’s heavy rain, most of the brick manufacturers of the region also blamed the recent cold wave for the poor performance of brick kilns. "The heavy rain that hit the region last month destroyed most of the raw bricks struck, while the cold wave added woes to injury by making the labourers difficult to work," said Yadav.

According to an official statistic, around 30 brick kilns are currently in operation in the region and the industry has generated employment for over 1,000 local labourers. Under the present provision, the brick industry either has to pay a lump sum tax amount of Rs 75,000 annually or should pay 10 per cent of tax of the total sales value of manufactured brick.

Coal scarcity hits utensil industry

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SALYAN, Feb 15 : The local small-scale industries engaged in manufacturing household utensils are at the verge of closure due mainly to raw materials scarcity, threatening the existence of these small industries.

Most of the small scale industries that manufacture various household utensils, including copper and brass utensils among others, have been hard hit by the protracted scarcity of coal, which is the crucial fuel for blending the raw copper and brass materials to produce domestic utensils.

The problem caused by the ongoing coal scarcity has been intensified by the unavailability of firewoods. The local manufacturers, who used to have easy access to forest for firewoods, are finding difficulties to have similar access these days.

As most forests of the region have been turned into the community forest, the local traders are not allowed to collect firewood inside the forest without the permission from local community.

Apart from the shortage of firewoods along with coal, the increasing use of plastic utensils has also discouraged the local manufacturers to continue their business.

"The growing use of the plastic goods has really discomforted our business. Earlier, we used to enjoy a profit of around Rs 400 each day, but the profit has plunged down to Rs 100," said Dev Tamrakar, a local manufacturer of such household utensils.