BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Budget should focus on agriculture

By a staff reporter

With the beginning of the budget session of the Parliament, many organizations in the country have extended their advise to the Ministry of Finance, which is presently preparing the budget estimate for the coming fiscal year.

Management Association of Nepal (MAN), a professional organization, has also submitted a number of recommendations last week to Finance Minister Mahesh Acharya for the forthcoming budget.

According to a MAN source, the recommendation has urged the government to give high priority to agriculture, increasing investment in social and infrastructure sector and preparing environment conducive for foreign and domestic investment.

It has also urged the budget to pay high attention for revenue mobilisation to make increased investment in the crucial sectors of the economy. Nepal has one of the worst revenue mobilisation records. It’s revenue mobilisation has traditionally hovered around 11 percent of GDP as against over 20 percent in the developed countries.

Though the revenue collection in the current fiscal year ending mid-July was earlier expected to touch a record 12 percent of GDP, due to slack mainly in non-tax revenue, shortfall is projected at over 2 billion rupees of the annual target, it is said.

The budget should take effective measures to implement full-fledged VAT and make provisions for penalty and incentives for those who evade VAT and fully comply with it, demanded the report. The failure behind the implementation of VAT, is partly due to weak bureaucracy and ineffective implementation mechanism, opined the MAN recommendation. It also pointed out on the need for substantive bureaucratic and institutional reform in this regard.

The report has also urged the government to bring a special programme to alleviate poverty. To address the widespread poverty the government should focus on good governance and human resource development, it said. The forthcoming budget should also focus on education and balanced growth approach for poverty alleviation.

Nepal has one of the worst case of incidence of poverty. Based on the Nepal Living Standard Survey Report, 1996, conducted by the World Bank and the Central Bureau of Statistics, over 42 percent of the Nepali population resides below the poverty line. However, if measured on the basis of one-dollar per day income for international comparison, population below the poverty line is estimated at 53 percent. The concentration of poverty is higher in rural areas compared to urban pockets. In rural area it is estimated to be over 70 percent.

Among other, it also recommended to take special attention to address the problem of agriculture marketing in Nepal and pointed out the need to protect the Nepali agriculture market from the influence of Indian market.

Goodwill Finance to collect Rs. 200 million deposit

By a staff reporter

Goodwill Finance and Investments Company Ltd. has set the target of collecting deposit of more than Rs. 200 million in its sixth year of operation. It was announced by Company Chairman Swarg Man Singh Shrestha at a press conference organised on the eve of its fifth anniversary. The company also plans to invest at the same ratio to various fields.

Entered into the sixth year of operation from Monday, the Goodwill Finance and Investment Company Ltd. has became the first finance company in Nepal to provide accident insurance to all its shareholders, staffs, depositors as well as loanees. “In our bid to provide as much facilities to our clients and staffs as possible, we have started to offer accident insurance scheme from the present fiscal year,” said Chairman Shrestha.

The amount of insurance scheme was determined according to the deposited amount in case of depositors and shareholders not exceeding Rs. 500,000 while for them staffs it was fixed upto Rs. 500,000. In this connection Dasarath Lal Shrestha, Managing Director of Nepal Insurance Company, handed over a cheque of Rs. 153,333.00 to the father of late Shailendra Shrestha, whose accidental insurance as a depositor of the company was made by the company.

Like wise, the company has also announced that in the past two months of the present fiscal year, it has been successful to make profit of about Rs. 10 million. It has distributed profit per share of Rs 5 in the 3rd year, Rs 10 in the 4th year and Rs 10 in the 5th year. However, it has not decided about the profit per it is going to distribute in the 6th year.

Presently, the company has more than 1100 shareholders.

SSI centre in Kathmandu

By a staff reporter

In it’s bid to provide quality computer education in Nepal, Chennai-based Software Solution Integrated Limited (SSI) has started a SSI Computer Training and Software Development Institute at Kantipath, Kathmandu.

Amidst a function, Minister of Science and Technology Surendra Prasad Chaudhry inaugurated the institute on Friday.

Speaking at the inaugural function, Minister Chaudhary has expressed the need of professional training centers in Nepal. He also hoped that establishment of SSI training center in Kathmandu will provide quality software education to Nepalese students.  

Addressing the same function, Minister Chaudhary also expressed government’s commitment to uplift the information Technology (IT) sector in the country.

The newly established institute is a joint-venture collaboration between Nepal and Italy, it is learnt. The Institute established by Campion Associates, a well known name in the field of education, will be managed by FCDPL, an Italian organisation. However, all the courses offered are according to the SSI Chennai.

SSI Chennai is one of the top three software education companies with over 400 centers worldwide and two wholly-owned subsidiaries in USA, namely Client Soft Inc. and Indigo International. With its expertise of close to a decade of leadership in high-end education, SSI branches around the world have been graduating over 100,000 professionals every year.

According to Josh Niraula, director at SSI Training Centre in Kathmandu, SSI’s ISO 9001 Certified Knowledge Division make use of cutting edge training methodologies that enhance professional skills to meet stringent industry demands.

“SSI was first to introduce ORACLE 8 education in India. It’s joint-venture with NASDAQ-Japan and NASDAQ-Europe to provide IT solution has already set a landmark,” he informed.

Presently, the SSI Kathmandu centre has started courses on e-commerce, Java Enterprises, Oracle with Visual Basic and Developer 2000, Trilogy 2000, Unix and C++, etc.