Promoting Export Trade
Finding New Export Areas

By Khilendra Basnyat

TODAY, economic development has been the crying need of every country. However, it is virtually impossible to bring about economic development without developing export trade.

Despite efforts, Nepal’s export has been sluggish and unable to ensure take-off. Consequently, it is a poor trader as yet.

As a direct result of its disadvantageous geographical situation, Nepal has experienced difficulties in developing its foreign trade which is largely dependent on transit facilities provided by India.

Nepal’s trade was only with Tibet and India five decades ago. Actually, Nepal’s export to India after the restoration of democracy has been found to be increasing as compared to the earlier ones. This growth is due to the trade treaty signed with India in 2053 B.S. No doubt, the treaty has provided easy access of the Nepalese products to markets in India. However, Nepal has a big trade deficit with India.

Since there is an open border, it is natural that India has big import on the trade of Nepal.

Being a landlocked country, Nepal has to rely on India for many things. Since Nepal does not have direct access to the sea, the structure of the foreign trade of the country has been affected by India to a great extent.

In fact, the development activities of a landlocked country like Nepal dependent on foreign trade cannot remain unaffected by internal factors. For example, the events in the subcontinent did determine progress in the past years. Likewise, worldwide inflation, scarcity of materials and other related problems slowed progress.

Nepalese metal goods, ivory and woodwork can also play a notable role in export trade, especially in exports to the north. However, agricultural commodities placed an important role among Nepalese exports and the overwhelming majority of Nepal’s imports became processed goods. This gave almost monopoly control over her trade to India.

Nepal’s great potential skilled handiwork has been simply demonstrated by its industry and the craft goods to be seen all over Kathmandu. The cost of such handiwork so high in developed countries and so cheap in Nepal that even with transport costs added, this handiwork could probably be sold at thirty to forty per cent below the prices of such goods produced in Europe.

Although the consequences of the landlocked situation is difficult to quantify, Nepal’s lack of access to the sea is compounded by its remoteness and its isolation from world markets. Overall growth, export, expansion and utilisation of foreign capital resources generate demand for international transport services. More difficulties and the cost of these services hinder Nepal’s overall development.

In the present global context, developing countries’ goods and services should have access to developed countries’ markets. However, such products should be up to the standard and have demand in the markets. If necessary, developed countries could transfer technology to the developing countries so that the latter may use it and make them advanced technologically.

Since Nepal is located in the heart of Asia from where large population can be served the east as well as west, it is possible to attract foreign companies in those fields from different countries. Presently, few have already entered, but it is important that raw materials instead of importing should be produced in Nepal within specified time.

For export promotion, formulation and effective implementation of a long-term plan is the pressing need of the day. Apart from this, there is the need to produce quality goods and services as per the demand of the international market, revive all trading polices, construct a separate airport for cargo and develop multi-model transport. Also, there is the need for programmes for stabilising industries, coordination among different ministries and formation of an autonomous export promotional body with the representation of private sectors.

If water can be harnessed well, there is a possibility to export power to India and Bangladesh and reap much benefit.

Apart from this, hand-woven carpets, readymade garments, hides and skins, oil, medicinal herbs, pulses, rice, handicrafts, wood and bamboo products, handmade paper and leather goods are some of the chief exportable items of Nepal.

In order to promote export trade, private sector should be encouraged, banking sector and cooperative motivated and agricultural development carried out in the form of campaign.

Despite the fact that the Nepalese government has not made any explicit acknowledgement of the impending balance of payment, during the sixties it enumerated the goal of diversification of trade. This is undoubtedly an attempt to regain the economic independence that Trans Himalayan Trade provided Nepal in the early nineteenth century.

No doubt, the diversification of trade plays a significant role in promoting export trade. Actually, a true diversification of trade implies not only finding new markets but also new goods to sell. If exports to hard currency markets are to be boosted, new lines of production have to be studied and established, new and reliable marketing contact to be found. Such a work involves technical and marketing knowledge that is probably unavailable within the country and managerial know-how that is scarce.

For export promotion, Nepal has to start finding new export areas for its food products in the traditional nearby Indian markets. The possibility is Tibet in the north, which can absorb adequate quantity of cereal goods. Nepal can also export to Europe, Japan and Taiwan its herbal products and fruits and vegetables to the Middle- East.

Measures To Battle Rage Of Rain

By Bhimsen Thapaliya

WITH the nature’s green cover being cleared to the critical proportion, the rage of monsoon is getting fiercer in the recent years. Until a decade or two ago, destruction caused by rain was not very severe as most of the country’s topography lay under a good protective cover of forests. As the problem of the rain-triggered calamities such as landslides, floods and inundation were not frequent, Nepal then could get an excuse to remain relatively unprepared to deal with them. But now the situation is completely different. Loss of Nepalese life and property with rain-induced disasters has become a common phenomenon. There is not a single monsoon season without such loss. Thus, fighting the rain-triggered disasters has stood as a major challenge before the country.

The worst aspect of the monsoon disaster is that the villages and communities concerned are caught unprepared resulting in a considerable loss of life and property. When this kind of occurrence has become a yearly phenomenon, it is high time to stop thinking the rain disaster in a traditional way. Preparatory measures are needed to battle the rage of the floods so that the destruction can be put to the minimum. The tendency of forgetting everything as soon as the monsoon is over should be avoided. In many instances, the sense of complacency seems to have made things worse. The concerned departments and the general people should keep in mind a sense of warning that monsoon can turn furious without enough sound of alarm. If we cannot undo this natural process, there is much we can do in terms of prevention and precaution. This will stop things going from bad to worse.

In recent years, the country has witnessed much irregularity in the weather patten. Sometimes, there is a prolonged dry spell followed by a sudden and heavy rain. Such a trend often takes the form of calamities. The drought results in shortage of drinking water, outbreaks of diseases and an adverse impact on agriculture. And when the prolonged dry spell is broken by the rain in excessive amount, the outcome is, again, disastrous. When the violent and torrential rains hit the hilly areas turned barren with deforestation, there are unwarned occurrence of landslides and flash floods. Under the force of the natural calamities people find themselves defenseless. Precious lives and property are lost. While in the form of short term personal losses, crops are damaged, cattle are killed and houses are destroyed, the destruction of fertile soil and burying of green cover have long term environmental consequences. Devastation of the latter type is more dangerous as it disturbs the ecological harmony and gives rise to further natural calamities.

Monsoon triggered disasters also inflict a huge magnitude of damage on vital infrastructure of development. This demands a nation to spend a large amount of budget in repairing and maintenance. Roads, bridges and dykes are the structure that are frequently hit by floods and landslides. These are the structures that require hefty amount of fund and highly specialised manpower to build. Thus, the necessity to control the rage of rain is of paramount importance for the nation. The anti-flood drive cannot be effective unless there are necessary policies and programmes.

Though the contingency measures to battle the destructive rage of rain is essential, more farsighted steps should also be taken to address the environmental aspect of such calamities. Environmentalists have blamed the degraded state of the ecology for the rising trend of natural disasters. They warn that if the alarming rate of deforestation, air and water pollution and dominance of concrete structures continue, the friendly weather phenomenon will keep turning more hostile.

To reverse the present environmental demotion, there is a need to halt the trend of deforestation. And to make up the losses that have been made, a massive afforestation drive must be launched. If we are to live in an environment without the threat of disasters either that of drought or excessive rains, we must ensure that we maintain enough and undepleted green cover. In order not to let the ecology suffer at the cost of development projects, an eco-friendly approach of development should be initiated.

Every year, as soon as the monsoon sets its foot in the country, the media are flooded with the reports of the rain-induced disasters hitting different parts of the country. As the people are caught unprepared, the magnitude of loss of lives and property is alarming. Anti-disaster measures, whatever, are often taken mostly after the occurrence of the worst. Such rescue measures are very difficult to execute as the rains have their devastating effects on the vital infrastructure such as road linking different areas of the country with the centre. An effective battle with this kind of problem is to plan things in advance so that the toll can be minimised. Such measures must be implemented in a decentralised way as launching contingency measures directly from the centre often faces problems.

When the blow of certain type of natural calamities keep hitting in a regular pattern, that must teach us a good lesson and prompt us to plan things in advance. When the price to be paid in the form of lives and property is of considerable scale, a country cannot afford to take the issue lightly. This is something that demands prompt and serious thought followed by actions.

Rain disasters in Nepal has become serious problem and it seems the trend is getting worse every year. However, the situation is not unmanageable like that of Bangladesh. With proper measures, the effects of monsoon calamities can be kept at bay to a large extent.

The Sick Calf And Strangers

By Bishnu Gautam

LAST Friday when I was heading towards Tinkune, Subidhanagar from Min Bhawan, on the Bagmati bridge I saw a man with a black glasses waving a paper leaf around the back of a calf. Seeing that I first realised that he was a mentally unwell man. Yet I wanted to know what he was actually doing and went to him crossing the busy road.

To my surprise, the Mongoloid faced man was continuously waving the paper leaf over the big wound on the back of the calf. I did not know whether he was a Nepali national or a foreigner, neither I asked him anything. However, he seemed to be dedicated to cool the helpless calf’s old wound.

After one and half an hour I returned back via the same route. But to my great surprise, the man was still there doing the same. The calf was also standing peacefully as if she were requesting the man to cure the wound. But this time the man was not alone. There were two other ‘white-skinned’ ladies to help him.

Meanwhile, the ladies called a taxi and put the small calf on it with the help of the taxi driver. They even did not forget to take one or two snaps while lifting the calf to the back of the taxi. The Mongoloid-faced man sat behind caressing the calf and the taxi with plate No. Ba 1 Ja 3170 was driven towards New Baneshwore. Probably they were taking it to veterinary hospital at Tripureshwore. The love the strangers had shown to the calf was really a great one.

Though I observed this all sitting a few metres away, I did not ask who they were and where they were taking the calf. For a Nepali who worships cow as a Goddess Laxmi, to make any inquiry at that time was certainly a matter of great shame.

Seeing that all a number of questions crossed my mind—do Nepalese people, famed worldwide for their generosity in the past, now lack altruistic attitude? Or they do not want to waste time in curing ‘stray animals’ like that calf? Are we forgetting our old values and falling prey to utilitarian culture? And are we not capable to afford treatment for a calf? Otherwise a helpless calf does have to wait for foreigners for a month to receive treatment.

I had been seeing the wounded calf for about a month roaming around New Baneshwore area. And the wound was not a normal one. All the skin on the right side just above the front leg was removed and flesh was open. Not to mention the blood and the dirty water flowing down from the terrible wound. Later, some one had covered the wound with a piece of cloth without putting any medicine on it.

Maybe, the cloth put on the wound caused pain to the calf and it shifted from Baneshwor to the Bagmati Bridge where it remained till the strangers took it away.

This scribe does not think that we Nepalese lack capacity to help helpless animals and human beings but we prefer to remain indifferent towards the problem they face. What an irony we helplessly witness our goddess suffering from wounds and do nothing to help her. Instead we see strangers lifting them to the hospital.

Are we worshipping the cow without love for centuries? Or, are we only following the tradition? And our ailing cows have to wait for the strangers who never worship them to get cured!

In fact, it is not only the animals we are ignoring, but we are also remaining indifferent towards the sufferings of humans. Otherwise we would not tolerate our grandmothers and children spending cool and wet nights under the open sky at New Road and Ratna Park areas.