New Delhi: The Government of Nepal has restricted imports of non-essential goods – including cars, cosmetics, and gold – after its foreign currency reserves dropped. Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the country’s central bank, issued this directive last week after a high-level meeting here consisting of officials from Nepal’s commercial banks.
“We have been seeing symptoms that there may be some kind of crisis in the economy, mainly because of growing imports. Therefore, we have discussed halting the imports of those items which are not immediately necessary,” NRB spokesperson Gunakhar Bhatta said.
It comes as a fall in tourism spending and money sent home by Nepalis working abroad helped drive up government debt.
Meanwhile, the governor of the country’s central bank was removed from his role last week. Nepal’s Finance Minister Janardhan Sharma assured that the Himalayan nation is not headed in the direction of Sri Lanka.
“Instead of creating panic by comparing Nepal’s economy with that of Sri Lanka, we need to focus on improving it. Nepal’s economy is comparatively in a better position in terms of the production and revenue system and the country is not affected by a huge foreign debt burden,” Sharma said.
Sharma, however, admitted that the country’s foreign exchange reserves were under stress due to the high imports of petroleum products, vehicles and luxury items and underlined the need to promote domestic production to curb imports.
(Vinayak)
