by Udaya Raj Adhikari
Pokhara Research Centre (PRC) was established on May 2019. In its first year of establishment only PRC became the partner with Atlas Foundation and Samriddhi-the Prosperity Foundation. It is executing various events/programs/projects under three functional domain viz. Research, Training and Advocacy.
But due to worldwide ongoing crisis on COVID-2019 Pandemic and nationwide lockdown imposed by Nepal Government economic activities throughout the country has been affected.
Nepal lies on the least developing country. Nepal economic growth is around 5 % and expected to grow to 7% as claimed by government. But due to COVID-2019 all developmental activity are also locked which is another setback for our economy.
As World Bank has officially said that the world has faced a global recession created due to COVID 2019. Currently, Nepal’s economy is remittance based which will be affected due to this worldwide lockdown. Similarly, the major affected due this pandemic is tourism sector. Nepal was getting visible slowly through campaign like Tourism Year 2020. There were huge investment in tourism sector like airports, hotels, restaurant and other physical infrastructure. Tourism of western Nepal was at its initial phase. But due to this crisis new innovative idea should be implemented to get the tourism in track. Similarly, banking sector profit will be lessen due less economic activity. Further, delayed in national proud projects are also in stand sill which will increase the cost of the projects affecting the economy as a whole.
To address this situation government has come up with immediate relief plan. Where tax filling time are extended, requesting house owner for layoff of house rent, extension of interest paying time, CRR has been reduced and paying wages to daily worker etc. These are mainly immediate relief package only. But to run the economy in right tract more economy friendly policy should be proposed by the government. Since, the crisis will create new thoughts and ideas in governance and service delivery which will create confusion in policy maker. But the importance of free market economy will always be there.
