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Kathmandu. Nepali Congress Member of Parliament Vinod Chaudhary has said that the economic growth rate projection of the Statistics Department has confirmed that the country has fallen into an economic recession.
Speaking at the Nepal Business Summit-23 organized by the Confederation of Banks and Financial Institutions in Kathmandu on Sunday, MP Chaudhary said this. MP Chowdhury said that the government has projected an economic growth rate of 8 percent, ADB and the World Bank have predicted that the economic growth rate will be 4 percent, but the statistics department has shown that the economic growth will be 4 times less than expected.
He said that the current state of problems and challenges of the economy have never appeared in the past. He mentioned that in the current financial year, only about 51 percent of the revenue collection target has been collected in about 10 and a half months. He also said that only 716 billion revenue has been collected till May 20 in the target of collecting about 14 billion in annual revenue.
MP Chaudhary said that even when the economic growth rate was negative in the history of the past 55 years, the revenue was not negative compared to the last financial year. He said that although the economic growth rate of the current financial year is not negative, the revenue collection will be negative. He said that the growth rate of manufacturing sector including agriculture and service sector is negative.
He also said that the pillars of GDP are in great trouble. He claimed that government reports have confirmed the decline in manufacturing industries by 20 to 80 percent. He mentioned that the private sector is discouraged and there are signs of recession in the market. He said that 35 percent of the industries have been displaced and the shutters of the main commercial centers have stopped opening.
He claimed that the overall financial sector of the country is showing signs of serious problems. MP Chaudhary said that bad loans of banks have doubled compared to last year and reached 2.63 percent, saying that it is expected to reach 4 percent. He said that the number of people blacklisted by the bank for not paying their loans has doubled. He mentioned that the black list of the last bank reached 22,000 and has increased to 48,000 in the current financial year.
He said that although the government has been paying current expenses from revenue, this year it has failed miserably. He accused the government of not working on time to improve the economy. He complained that even though there were repeated voices in the parliament that the current expenditure should be reduced and capital expenditure should be increased and the budget should be reformed, there has been no improvement so far.
MP Chaudhary said that the post-2074 government did not dare to implement the recommendations of the Public Expenditure Review Commission. He said that the government has not been able to bring the process of development and construction on track.