Promoting Export Trade

NEPAL Chambers of Commerce organised an interaction programme in Kathmandu the other day to discuss the challenges and opportunities of export trade in Nepal. In the interaction programme, traders and business experts stressed the need to create a more congenial atmosphere for boosting Nepal’s export trade in order to narrow the ballooning trade deficit of the country. His Majesty’s Government has declared the year 2003 as the export year and the interaction programme was aimed at making this declaration a success. As Nepal’s trade deficit is growing, the government has encouraged export trade. If the country can export more items, only then it can create a healthy economy and narrow trade deficit. However, Nepal’s trade imbalance is growing fast. Import has far exceeded the export. However, the situation has slightly changed over the last few years. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepal adopted the policy of economic liberalization, which has played a positive role in the expansion and diversification of foreign trade. Some good and encouraging signs are visible in the country’s foreign trade sector as a result of the implementation of foreign trade policy and reforms in the exchange regime. Similarly, the government has introduced and implemented policies and programmes for the promotion of exportable goods, quality improvement and market management of foreign trade. As a result, foreign trade was increased by 12.1 per cent in the last fiscal year. However, the import has the lion’s share in it. Although export increased by 8.5 per cent in the last fiscal year, it is still very little compared to imports. The statistics show that the trade deficit in the last fiscal year decreased by 1.4 per cent totaling 36.248 million rupees. But the volume of deficit is very high. There has been a decline in the export of items like woolen carpets and pashminas. Lack of aggressive marketing and quality control may have affected Nepal’s export trade with the third countries. As Nepal is trying to be a member of the World Trade Organisation, it needs to give more attention to quality of exportable items and their prices. Nepal is facing stiff competition every day in the international market. If we fail to maintain quality and give attention to aggressive marketing, our export trade is likely to suffer more. In this era of competition, we must be more competitive in order to sell our products and boost our export trade, which businessmen and other concerned people must realise. Else declaration of Export Year alone may not serve the desired purpose.

Nepal’s Organic Tea

IN a programme organised in Tokyo, Japan the other day to introduce Nepalese tea to the Japanese market, Nepalese Ambassador Kedar Bhakta Mathema observed that one of the most distinguished features of tea cultivation in Nepal is that it is mostly cultivated in virgin soil with minimum or no use of inorganic fertilisers and pesticides. Tea cultivation in Nepal is a recent phenomenon. It’s not that tea is an unknown commodity and drink among the Nepalese. But what really held up tea cultivation, that too, in an extensive scale, was the misconception among the people as well as the concerned authorities that Nepalese climate, soil and terrain were not suitable for tea cultivation. Fortunately, this misconception, albeit belatedly, has been dispelled—and Nepalese tea has gone on to become one of the fast-rising niche market players in tea markets overseas. Yes, niche market because Nepal has yet to enroll its name in the major tea producing nations’ list. Despite this, Nepalese tea, especially its orthodox variety, is becoming increasingly popular among tea-drinkers and lovers abroad, including Japan.

One main reason for this popularity is that many Nepalese tea estates, as Ambassador Mathema also aptly observed during the function, have opted to grow tea through organic methods. This means that they use only organic manures and no pesticides. Also, Nepalese organic tea growers, producers and exporters, in collaboration with foreign tea importing boards and organisations, have initiated steps to have their common product certified as "organic tea". This is in keeping with the recent trend among foreign tea-drinkers who are increasingly becoming environment and health conscious. This also means that there is a growing market for organically produced tea overseas, especially in the highly developed nations. Hence, to tap such markets, the Nepalese tea producers and exporters need to launch sustained promotion drives to popularise Nepal’s organic tea. In this regard, the Nepalese missions abroad—like the Royal Nepalese Embassy in Tokyo—could play a beneficial role by organising periodic functions where Nepal’s organic tea exporters could meet their foreign counterparts. Since the price factor also dictates a commodity’s market potential overseas, organic tea producers and exporters should work together, possibly through the Tea Board, to give this Nepalese item its much-needed competitive edge. Especially at a time when the tea markets overseas are becoming increasingly crowded—and the habit of having a "morning cuppa" is slowly giving way to coffee-drinking.