Biz News January 2015

  28 min 11 sec to read

‘ICT for Agriculture’ Awarded the Best App of the Year
Ncell App Camp 2014 has awarded ICT for Agriculture the best app award from the competing 24 apps. The app provides information about weather condition and the market value of agricultural goods. The winners were awarded half million as cash prize, along with being selected for the worldwide app camp. The app was also awarded as the best in the agriculture category, for which it received cash prize of 250,000 rupees.
 
SentiNep app was awarded the best app for corporate solutions award. The app analyses sentiments and opinions of people and categorizes them into positive, negative and neutral comments. Similarly, Lipi (The script) app has been awarded as the best in the tourism category. It is an application that tries to help tourist understand Devnagiri signboards or texts simply through taking a picture which the apps turns into text in a language of the users' choice. All the best apps of the different category were awarded prize money of 250,000 rupees.
 
The app camp is seen as a step to recognise app developers in Nepal and to provide them with a platform. Initially more than 400 apps were registered out which 150 apps were selected for the second stage. In the finals, 24 apps were given the opportunity to be developed. The camp had national as well as international experts guiding and judging the participants.
 
Nepal Sends Feedback to China on the BIPPA Draft
Nepal government has sent its feedback to the Chinese government on the draft of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA). Maheshwor Neupane, joint secretary at the Ministry of Industry, while confirming the development informed that the Minister for Industries, Mahesh Basnet, had reverted the draft back to the Chinese government via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by incorporating feedback from various stakeholders.
 
Prior to this, Nepal has already signed BIPPA with six countries including Germany, UK, Finland and India. According to Neupane, most of the provisions in the BIPPA draft are similar to those incorporated in the BIPPA with India. He informed that the signing process now depends on the responses of China.
 
‘Great Himalayan Trail’ Implementation Kicks Off
The government has begun the implementation of the ‘Great Himalayan Trail’ project by according it high priority in the budget of the current fiscal year 2014/15. Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, informed that it has allocated Rs 50 million for the project and is presently discussing its implementation with stakeholders.
 
According to the government, the project would include tourist routes from Taplejung of the Eastern region to Darchula of the Western region. Taking this into account, the department has begun taking necessary actions for its implementation, Tulsi Prasad Gautam, director general of the Tourism Department said. As part of the first phase of the project, a joint committee comprising members from both public and private sector has been formed and discussions for implementing the project have been held. 
 
DB Limbu, chairman of the Joint Tourism Coordination Committee (JTCC), informed that the private sector actors have emphasised on using the budget for the development of a certain region of the trail during the discussion.“The project has the probability of bringing in huge investments,” he added, “So, we have advised the committee to utilise the allocated budget in proper region.” He claimed that the private sector actors have also emphasized on developing north–south trails along with the east–west trail routes.
 
UK Aid, SNV Nepal, Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN), Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and the Ministry of Tourism have been jointly supporting the project that is expected to exemplary as the highest Himalayan trekking trail of the world.
 
The route incorporates Kanchanjunga region, Makalu-Barun, Everest-Rolwaling, Helambu-Langtang, Ganesh Mountain-Manaslu, Annapurna-Mustang and covers Dolpa, Rara, Jumla, Humla and some of the exotic destinations of the Far-Western region.
 
SNV Nepal Launches Two New Projects
As part of its efforts to make substantial contribution to Nepal’s efforts to achieve the target of universal coverage for sanitation by 2017, the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation in Nepal has recently launched two new sanitation and hygiene related projects. Ram Chandra Devkota, joint secretary at the Ministry of Urban Development, while speaking at the projects launching programme informed that both projects will benefit nearly one million people in the targeted 15 districts of the country.
 
Funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), SNV said in a press release that “the Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All (SSH4A) Results Programme will support more than 240,000 people to improve their sanitations and hygiene situation in the country." The programme targets 96 VDCs in seven districts namely Banke, Surkhet, Dailekh, Mugu, Humla, Siraha and Saptari. The multi-country SSH4A – Results Programme is being implemented in nine SNV countries across Asia and Africa including Nepal.
 
Similarly, the second SSH4A project funded by the Civil Society WASH Fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australia and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (DGIS), The Netherlands will enable access to sanitation and hygiene to 270,000 people. The target area of this programme includes 96 VDCs of eight districts namely Kalikot, Jumla, Dolpa, Rukum, Rolpa, Salyan, Mahottari and Sarlahi. The statement says that the SSH4A Civil Wash fund programme is being implemented in Bhutan and Nepal.
 
Claire Finas, country director of SNV Nepal said, "these two new projects have expanded SNV's working areas in sanitation and hygiene to 15 districts, including those in Terai where the pace of coverage and access to sanitation facilities is fairly low compared to rest of the country.”
 
Both these projects will end in 2018. SNV will work closely with Ministry of Urban Development, District Development Committees, Village Development Committees and WASH Coordination Committees at national, regional and local levels for the implementation of these projects. SNV Nepal has been working in the rural WASH sector to strengthen the capacity of the government, private sector agencies, civil society and other WASH stakeholders to deliver sustainable sanitation and hygiene services since 2008.
 
JICA Commitments: Infrastructure and Education
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funded Sindhuli Road Construction Project (SRCP) that stretches from Dhulikhel to Bardibas is supposed to complete by March 2015 and is expected to formally inaugurated by May, the same year. During his visit to Nepal this November Toshiyuki Kuroyanagi, vice president of JICA, confirmed the schedule and elaborated the organization’s plans in Nepal. Sindhuli road is touted as the model road for rugged terrain and mountainous country like Nepal. 
 
“JICA is willing to support Nepali engineers who are ready to take challenges to construct rural roads in Nepal,” Kuroyanagi said adding that the organisation will conduct surveys for the Nagdhunga Tunnel project and Suryabinayak - Dhulikhel road project after completing the SRCP. He expressed confidence that these road construction projects would assist in improving the existing transportation network between Kathmandu and other parts of the country.  Along with the infrastructure development, JICA has prioritised institutional development for sustainable economic growth, consolidation of peace and steady transition for democratic state and reduction of rural poverty. It has many programmes to address these priority areas.
 
Air Transport
JICA is also supporting in setting up the air traffic control mechanism at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu. “Present air traffic control service in Nepal that uses approach surveillance radar to observe air crafts flying in Nepal is insufficient. Replacement of this old and out-dated technology has been recognized as an immediate need to ensure safe and efficient aircraft operation in the Nepali airspace,” the organisation said adding that the objective of this project is to improve safety of aircraft flying on Nepali airspaces. 
 
Education
The Government of Japan, a few months back had decided to extend a grant assistance of 300 million Japanese yen, which is approximately NRs 279 million to Nepal for assisting its poverty reduction efforts, exclusively intended for the School Sector Reform Plan (SSRP).
 
“Considering the socioeconomic situation of Nepal, education sector is one of the priority areas both for the government of Nepal and JICA, where we have been able to assist through the construction of more than 9,500 classrooms in most remote districts, dispatch of volunteers as school teachers and also experts at the ministry and department level,” said Kuroyanagi.
 
JICA has built more than 9,000 schools in Nepal through grant aid for supporting Nepal’s commitment to achieve universal primary education for all children by the 2015. Along with that, it has implemented the Project for Support for Improvement of Primary School Management (SISM) from 2008 to 2011 under the Technical Assistance of the Government of Japan.
 
JICA has been working in Nepal for more than four decades in different development sectors. It started its operation here with the dispatch of Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) in 1970. So far, more than 1,000 JOCVs and 150 senior volunteers (SV) have worked in different fields throughout the country.
 
NIBL to Increase Samriddhi Fund-1
NIBL Capital has decided to increase the corpus of its first mutual fund scheme, Samriddhi Fund-1, from the initial Rs 800 million to Rs 1 billion, after it was oversubscribed. 
 
Mekh Bahadur Thapa, general manager of the company claimed that they received over three-fold subscription for the scheme than what they expected initially. “We have received an offer of 2.60 rupees till now. There might be a little change to this amount,” he said adding that, “We are yet to clear the cheques and we don’t know about the applications that will come in bank.” He further informed that the company will expand its existing Rs 800 million fund by 25 per cent to make it one billion rupees to accommodate its additional subscribers. 
 
Elaborating on the issue, Thapa, said that there is a possibility that the investors that invest less than 50 thousand rupees will get one unit of the total amount, if the company expands its corpus. He added that investors investing more than 50 thousand will get up to 40 per cent unit of the amount. However, if the company does not expand its fund, he said, those who invest more than 50 thousand will only get 33 per cent unit of the amount.
 
The company has received around 9000 applications within five days. The face value per unit is Rs 10.
 
NMB Bank to Merge CED Bank as Well
NMB Bank has reached an understanding with Clean Energy Development Bank (CEDB) for merger. The MOU has already been signed between the banks. Kamalesh Kumar Agrawal, founder of NMB Bank and Laxmi Prasad Shrestha, founder of CED Bank signed the merger agreement with an understanding to complete the merger by April.
 
Upendra Poudyal, CEO of NMB Bank, while informing that this merger is complex in nature, claimed that one complete it would strengthen the bank’s position and make it even more competitive.
 
Prior to this, NMB has already signed merger agreement with Bhrikuti Development Bank (BDB) and Pathivara Development Bank (PDB). NMB is presently calculating the total assets and Demand Deposit Account of all the three banks merging with it. 
 
Poudyal claimed that total capital and reserve fund will increase to 5.48 billion rupees, total deposit will rise to 42.44 billion rupees and the total loan will increase to 33.97 billion rupees after the merger.
 
Presently NMB Bank has 29 branches and 4 extension counters. After the merger with the three banks, it will have 67 branches and seven counters across the country. Likewise, the bank’s ATM outlets will rise to 38. The bank’s name will remain the same even after the merger.
 
NRB Introduces Measures to Systematize Remittance
Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has made it mandatory for ‘A’ class and ‘B’ class financial institutions to take separate permission for remittance transaction. Prior to this, commercial and development banks, having permission for agency account and fund transfer, were allowed to conduct remittance transaction without a separate permission. However, now these financial institutions will have to obtain permission for remittance, Manmohan Kumar Shrestha, spokesperson of NRB said adding that the “system is introduced to bring remittance under regulation.”
 
The new provision requires banks conducting remittance transaction to obtain permission from NRB’s Foreign Exchange Management Department within 3 months. Along with this, the system also necessitates the bank to receive the remittance payment before making the payment to the remittance recipient. However such advance payments will be possible if as per NRB’s regulations the foreign bank has given bank guarantee on the amount.
 
Similarly, the remittance received from abroad should be deposited in the customer’s account. NRB has directed banks to start this system within a year. The new system also directs banks to establish a working procedure plan for know your customer (KYC), Anti money laundering (AML) and Combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).
 
Along with these measures, NRB has also made it mandatory for banks to obtain its permission while renewing agreement with foreign companies or adding new provisions in the existing agreement. It has also directed banks to receive their revenue as commission in foreign currency.
 
Corruption Increases Again in Nepal
Corruption prevalence rate increased in Nepal this year after a brief period of improvement during the past two years. Transparency International’s latest report positioned the nation at 126th position in its corruption index out of 175 nations reviewed by it. Nepal ranked 156thin the index in 2011 but since than it had improved its positioning. Last year it ranked 116 and in 2012 it had ranked 129th. Bhutan has been considered to be the least corrupt nation among other South Asian countries. It has been ranked at 30th position with 38 points. Sri Lanka and India followed Bhutan with equal points. Both of these countries are in 75th position. However, Nepal managed to stand together with Pakistan on the corruption index. Bangladesh secured 7th position in the corruption Index with 25 points and Afghanistan was placed 7th position with 12 points. Maldives has not been included in the list. Denmark has been considered to be the least corrupt country in the world and has obtained 92 points. Likewise, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden and Norway are serially ranked as top five least corrupt countries. The Index has listed Somalia, North Korea and Sudan as the most corrupt countries.
 
CE Construction Nepa ConXpo 2014 Concluded
The third edition of the five-day ‘CE Construction Nepa ConXpo 2014,’ concluded on 8th December at the Bhrikutimandap in Kathmandu doing more business than planned. “We did around 140 million rupees worth during the exhibition,”said Sudeep KC, coordinator of the exhibition adding that the event was visited by over 35,000 visitors.
 
KC claimed the exhibition helped in the growth of construction and related other industries along with becoming a medium to voice the problems of the whole sector. He claimed that the exhibition acted as a platform to the general public to understand the basics of construction and its materials. The exhibition had stalls from China and India also. Along with construction, many visitors at the expo were delighted to gather information about home accessories like solar water heater, chimney and water treatment solutions.
 
New Foreign Investment Policy Draft Forwarded to Cabinet
The Ministry of Industry (MoI) has forwarded the final draft of the Foreign Investment Policy-2014 to the Council of Ministers for the latter’s approval. When approved, the new policy will replace the 22 years old Foreign Investment and One-window Policy 1992.
 
Industry Minster Mahesh Basnet said that the new policy, once it is implemented, would attract foreign investors and help lay the foundations for industrial revolution in the country. “The country’s private sector and foreign investors had been demanding for a new foreign investment policy for a long time. Now, the MoI has forwarded it to the Cabinet. The idea is to attract as much foreign investment as possible,” he said.
 
Acting secretary at MoI, Maheshwor Neupane said that the draft of the new policy had been prepared after thorough discussion among 13 various government bodies, MoI, private sector and foreign investors.
 
Suraj Vaidya, former president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry said that foreign investment was necessary to create employment opportunities in Nepal. “The new policy will help attract foreign investment in the country. The new policy should be implemented at the earliest possible. There should be no delay in implementing it now,” he opined.
 
Similarly, president of Nepal Chamber of Commerce, Rajesh Kaji Shrestha said that the new foreign investment policy was in favour of not only foreign investors but also domestic investors. “The new document has the provision of one-window policy for foreign investors. Once the policy is implemented, foreign investors will get license within a week of filing the application and will be able to begin their projects within 15 days. We have expected that the new policy will help create positive investment environment in the country,” said Shrestha.
 
According to sources at the MoI, the new Foreign Investment Policy draft has addressed the demands and challenges of foreign investment in the changed national and international context.
 
The new policy has attached high priority to the production and transmission of hydroelectricity, infrastructure development of the transportation sector, agro-, food- and herbs-processing industries, tourism industry, minerals- and mine-based industries and manufacturing industries, according to the MoI.
 
Similarly, the draft of the new policy mentions that the activities of the Investment Board will be made more effective in order to mobilize foreign as well as domestic investment in various sectors including infrastructure development. The draft also proposes to constitute an Industry and Investment Promotion Board under the chairmanship of the Industry Minister. This Board will promote the establishment of industries based on foreign investment.
 
Likewise, the draft of the new policy has acknowledged the role of the private sector for sustained economic growth and employment generation and emphasizes on mobilizing foreign investment, technologies, skills and knowledge in the prioritized areas.
 
Arghakhanchi Cement Begins Production
Arghakhanchi Cement Pvt Ltd has started producing cement branded as ‘Arghakhanchi Cement’. Prior to this, the company was producing clinker only. The cement production and clinker units installed at the Manaiya, Rupandehi district based plant of the company can respectively produce one thousand tons of cement and 1200 tons of clinkers every day, Pashupati Murarka, one of the directors of the company informed.
 
Murarka informed that spread over 20 bigha of land, factory has raw material mines in Narapani and Khanchikot of Arghakhanchi and Jhumsa of Palpa, which will sustain the company for another 35 years. 
 
He said the industry will operate for 340 days in a year while the mines will operate for 200 days to produce Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) only, as it is targeting big infrastructure projects.“If the company receives adequate electricity supply, we can double clinker production,” Rajesh Agrawal, another director of the company said while informing that the company has to invest 200 million rupees for purchasing diesel every year.
 
Arghakhanchi Cement is a three billion rupees joint venture of four business groups among which Siddhartha group has 35 per cent, Murarka group 30 per cent, Kedia group 17.5 per cent and Uma Cement International, India, 17.5 per cent share.
 
Sarbottam Cement Starts Production 
Sarbottam Cement Industries has come into operation with a total investment of six billion rupees. Established under the Saurav Group of companies, the company claims to be the first of its kind to bring in 45 per cent of its investment from foreign source. 
 
Located in Nawalparasi and spread over 29 bighas of land, its mines are spread over 20 square kilometres of Kachal and Dobhan VDC, Palpa and has the capacity to produce a total of four lakh metric tons of cement. It products 1200 tons cement on daily basis. Its factory is equipped with special technology like the cross bar to minimize the energy use and baghouse to control smoke emission.
 
The company claims to produce crossed angular cement through the use of VRM technology and claims to be producing cement that is stronger than others. It claims of providing direct employment to 660 people and indirect employment to 1000 people.
 
Sunkoshi Hydropower Resumes Operation 
After grounding for nearly four months, the Sunkoshi Hydropower Project (SHP) has resumed operation partially. The massive Jure landslide on July 31 had grounded the project. 
 
Sanjay Pathak, engineer at the project is operating on its partial capacity. With its three generators in operation, the plant can produce 2, 41,200 unit of electricity daily, but presently it is producing seven to eight mega watt of electricity by using two generators. 
 
Around 67 Mega watt of electricity was produced from the Sunkoshi area before being affected by the landslide. Three hydro projects from Bhairabkunda and Chaku are presently producing around nine megawattof electricity that is connected to the central transmission line. The flood had affected also the 2.5 Mega watts Sanima Hydro is expected to take a while to resume operations.
 
Agreement between Prime Life and Hannover Re
Prime Life Insurance Company Limited and the Hannover Re, a Reinsurance Company of Germany have entered mutual agreement for disaster reinsurance. Manoj Kumar Bhattarai, chief executive officer at Prime Life Insurance and Ravinder Singh, deputy general manager at Hannover Re's Malaysian Branch, signed the agreement paper amid a programme organised on 9th of December. 
 
Hannover Re is the third in the list of world’s top reinsurers and the agreement between the companies is supposed to increase reliability of Prime Life Insurance. As of mid-October the paid-up capital of Prime Life Insurance is Rs 500 million and Life insurance fund is more than Rs 2.8 billion. It has collected insurance premium of more than Rs 4.97 billion through more than 1, 056, 935 insurance policies from 101 branches and sub-branches across the country.
 
Responsible Business Summit 2014 Concludes 
Nepal Responsible Business Summit 2014 concluded on December 17th with the commitment to operate responsible and ethical businesses. The summit discussed about the steps necessary to make businessmen responsible towards people, society and the nation. The participants of the summit opined that only responsible and ethical business could help in the economic development of the country. 
 
On the second day of the summit, separate discussions with experts from respective fields were organised about the practise of responsible business in Nepal and the improvements that needs to be made.
 
Issues like brand empowerment, ideas to minimise the operational expenses, promotion of corporate norms, staff management, increase in productivity and team effort for the business improvement were discussed in the summit. 
 
Speaking at the concluding ceremony of the programme, Padma Jyoti, President of NBI said that the summit has played an effective role in making businesses more responsible towards society and nation. If every businessman takes the responsibility personally, it couldimprove the business environment as a whole, he added Similarly, business leaders like Prabhakar SJB Rana, Suresh Pradhan, Pradeep Kumar Shrestha and Kush Kumar Joshi opined that the summit has played a great role in creating awareness about the implementation of professional ethics. The two-day summit was organised by the National Business Initiative (NBI).
 
Saurya Air starts Bhairahawa-Kathmandu Flights
SauryaAir (SA) has begun providing air flight services between Bhairawa and Kathmandu from. Its first flight to Gautam Buddha Airport (GBA), Bhairahawa took off from Kathmandu on 7th December. The airline is planning to fly once a day between Bhairawa and Kathmandu, Pradeep Basnet, branch head of the SA at GBA informed. 
 
He informed that the SA is providing air connectivity at affordable costs starting at NRs 4300 per person. The airline has certain discount packages for children, women and elderly people. Children below 3 years can travel for free, children less than 12 years old get 33 per cent discount, elderly people will get 35 per cent discount while women will get 10 per cent discount, Basnet added. It has waived off charge for luggage below 25 Kg. 
 
The airline takes off from Bhairawa every day at 12:25 PM and flies back from Kathmandu at 4 PM, Mukesh Khanal, marketing manager of the airline said.
 
Significant Increase in Foreign Aid Commitment
In the first quarter of the current fiscal year 2014/15, foreign donor agencies have made aid commitment of more than Rs 209 billion. This is 57.29 per cent more than that made during the last fiscal year, which was Rs 133.44 billion. 
 
Ministry of Finance (MoF) pointed to the commitment made by the Nepal government to increase investment in the hydropower sector as the primary factor for such a surge in foreign aid commitment. Along with that, improvement in business confidence for investment following the formation of a stable government, government’s initiation towards implementing second phase of economic reform and mobilisation of the big projects and programmes are other contributing factors, the ministry said. 
 
Elaborating further, Krishna Prasad Devkota, spokesperson at the MoF claimed that increase in the support to Nepal by donor agencies, increase in the capacity of Nepalis to spend money, increase in size of the annual budget of the government year after year, along with the innovative launch of the Development Cooperation Policy after a gap of 12 years has also helped increase the foreign aid. 
 
Out of the total committed amount, Rs 107.74 billion is loan while Rs 102.14 billion is aid. In the first quarter of the last fiscal year the committed loan amount was 17.82 billion while aid commitment rested at Rs 12.71 billion. 
 
In the past, large amount of aid used to come through the Non-Budgetary System but recent policy changes require to channelize large amount aid through One Window National System. This has also contributed in increasing the figure of the aid amount, Devkota added.
 
India has committed to provide a soft loan of Rs 8.78 billion for developing infrastructure projects including irrigation and hydropower in the current fiscal year. Likewise, The World Bank is providing additional aid of more than Rs 453 billion for the construction of Kabeli ‘A’ hydropower project. Apart from these, aid for programmes like Nepal-India friendly irrigation project, school reform programme, bio-gas project, rural development, among others have received aid commitment. 
 
India has committed the largest amount of aid till the first quarter of current year. Switzerland, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, European Union, and USAID are some of the other donor agencies that have made aid commitment. 
 
Shrestha Sets up Rs 5 Mln Treatment Fund for Children
Industrialist and former president of Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), Ravi Bhakta Shrestha has formed a revolving fund Rs five million at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) for the treatment of poor children. Shrestha had set up Indra Jawahar Health Treatment Fund (IJ Charitable Trust) in memory of his parents around four years ago. He informed that he added Rs 2.5 million to the trust and made it five million. The interest from the fund is used for the treatment of children admitted at TUTH’s Department of Paediatrics.
 
Terming the initiative as part of his corporate social responsibility, he informed that he will keep on adding funds to the Trust and that as per his father’s wish he wants to extend this kind of help in other sectors as well. Dr Arun Sharma, a paediatrics specialist at the Department of Paediatrics informed the fund had helped in the treatment of 49 children last year. 
 
IJ Charitable Trust enables the hospital administration for using the money from the fund to provide medical treatment underprivileged children under the recommendation of the respective doctors in the department and under the supervision of the Fund’s committee chaired by the TUTH Director.
 
Finance Ministry Requests China for Loan 
Ministry of Finance has officially requested the Chinese government to provide loan for the construction of regional international airport in Pokhara. “Letter regarding the loan agreement has been sent to the Chinese government and we expect to complete all the procedures regarding it within six months,” Finance Secretary Suman Prasad Sharma said. 
 
The construction of the project is estimated to complete at the cost of 216 million USD. The Export-Import (EXIM) Bank of China has agreed to provide the loan at reasonable interest rate. The government will take this amount in the form of loan and Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal will construct the airport. 
 
Construction of the airport was halted two years ago citing that it exceeded the estimated cost. The Chinese Airport Construction Company (CACC) had proposed to complete the project in Rs 28.06 million. However, the cost estimated by the Authority was Rs 166 million. 
 
The government had acquired 3,106 ropanis of land forty years ago to build regional international airport at Chinnedaanda of Pokhara. The airport will have 45 metre wide and 2,500 meters long runway that will be eligible for landing and taking off of aircrafts like Boeing 757. 
 
The construction of the airport is expected to complete within 3 years. After the completion, the airport will see arrival and departure of 600,000 passengers. The construction cost of the airport is expected to recover in seven years.
 
 
Sanford Products in Nepali Market
Sanford Home and Kitchen Appliances has launched over 1500 products in the market, which it claims are of excellent quality. As a company that claims to be one of the fastest growing brands globally and produces new products to cater to the need of mass consumers, Sanford has won the trust of millions of consumers globally.
 
Sanford offers a one-stop shop to housekeepers. It mainly aims to save time and provide utmost quality at reasonable prices. There is no such particular target group for the brand since the brand is meant for people who are looking for premium yet affordable products. From a student looking for a hair clipper priced at Rs 1500 to a corporate house looking for a chest freezer for their cafeteria, Sanford caters the needs of everyone. In short, Sanford is a one-stop shop where all the needs are fulfilled ranging from beauty, kitchen and small home appliances, electrical and lighting and every product comes with a one-year warranty, says the company. 
 
The reason behind its popularity is its use of best-in-class research facilities and agencies to validate and ensure that its product innovations are designed around people’s needs and aspirations, are easy to experience and touch the every day life of its consumers, it says. Sanford is the brand that promises simplicity and intimately understands the needs and aspirations of consumers, says the company. With more than 55 dealer outlets, Sanford appliances are available throughout the Kathmandu valley. Similarly, the brand will very soon be available in other A&B tier towns outside the valley. 
 
Its a Japanese technology based brand operated from UAE and has its set up in Japan, Malaysia, China, Middle East and India. 
 

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