Can Nepal Achieve 7 per cent Economic Growth Rate?

‘Focus On Tourism, Productivity And Exports’

Nepal has the prospects for large-scale investment. Foreign investment is important for the development of sectors such as hydropower, tourism, transport, railway, agriculture and other bigger projects. We need to speedily develop bigger hydropower projects to address the energy crisis. Without tackling the energy crisis, we cannot really expect a healthy economic growth rate. Both the public and the private sectors should invest to increase production. We also need rapid industrialization which will create new employment opportunities. Nepal has tremendous possibilities of tourism development. Nepal should basically target Chinese and Indian tourists. In the last fiscal year, more than 10 million Chinese and Indian tourists went for outbound travel. If we can attract only 10 per cent of it, we will have one million more tourists. Nepal should make serious attempts to achieve this. Nepal should make long-term strategies to reduce imports and increase exports by increasing the domestic production of goods and services. Nepal should focus on increasing the export of commodities like, carpet, herbs, ginger, tea and Pashmina, among others.