Observers and recent studies blame it on the anarchy that has gripped this Hindu Kingdom, and from which it seems to have no immediate escape.
KATHMANDU: Nepal probably is a unique economic story. Caught between two of world’s fastest growing economies China and India, the Himalayan Kingdom is a tale of missed chances and miserable growth. What a senior western diplomat in the Nepal capital calls a “sorry state of affairs.”
Observers and recent studies blame it on the anarchy that has gripped this Hindu Kingdom, and from which it seems to have no immediate escape.
According to the latest Asian Development Bank projections released last week, Nepal’s economy would grow by just 2.5 per cent over next year, when its neighbours India and China would be zipping at a rate anywhere between 7 and 10, and probably more.
“The fact that Nepal is sandwiched between the two Asian economic giants should have helped those in power wield a course that proved beneficial to this country,” Kathmandu Post said on Saturday in an editorial.
In fact, argues a western diplomat, the growth “in per capita terms is almost negative”, meaning the population is growing faster than the economy. While rest of South Asia is reaping harvests of globalization “the region’s poorest country is reporting just two per cent growth,” he lamented.
The world’s only Hindu Kingdom is fast turning into a postal economy, dependent on remittance from its expatriates.
According to a recent UNDP report, 32 per cent of household in Nepal in 2004 were dependent on remittances, which was only 23 per cent in 1996.
Foreign aid, another substantial contribution annually keeping Nepal afloat, is slowly falling because of the “political uncertainties and the inability of the aid to reach the targets,” says a European diplomat.
He points out that a major donor like Denmark has brought down its aid of 150 million Danish krone (DKK) in 2004 to 125 million DKK this year.
So the other major income generator seems to be King’s regime’s major focus: sending its people out to work around the world.
When foreign minister Ramesh Nath Pandey visited Gulf this week topping his agenda was finding more jobs for Nepalese in the oil region.
As male members go searching for jobs abroad, agriculture, on which 80 per cent of its economically active population depends, is fast turning into a feminine activity. Recent reports say at least 49 per cent of the work force in agriculture is women.
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