July 3: The World Bank has elevated Nepal’s income status to lower-middle-income group from the lower-income country.

Publishing the Updated Country Income Classification for 2020-21 on its Data Blog, the Washington DC-based agency said that Nepal has notch up to the new group with its gross national income (GNI) of USD 1,090 from USD 960 a year earlier. According to the World Bank, countries having GNI of USD1, 036 to USD 4,045 are kept in the category of lower-middle income group.

“The World Bank assigns the world’s economies to four income groups—low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-income countries. The classifications are updated each year on July 1 and are based on GNI per capita in current USD (using the Atlas method exchange rates of the previous year,” the World Bank writes.  The bank has said that the GNI numbers that are used for this year’s classification do not yet reflect the impact of Covid-19.