Nepal
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel has urged a collaborative effort to address the challenges facing the global economy.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, there are signs of a global recession, and now is the time for everyone to work together to stop it, Paudel said while addressing the ‘Voice of Global South Summit’ held virtually on Thursday.
Finance ministers of 15 countries, including Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka, participated in the summit.
Human development and economic growth go hand in hand, he said, “Nepal is on track to move out of the ‘underdeveloped' category by 2026. We want to make sure that Nepal is doing well and that people there are happy."
To reach its sustainable development goals from 2016 to 2030, Nepal has put infrastructure, education, health services, and social security at the top of its list for economic changes.
According to him, there is a funding gap of Rs585 billion that must be filled to meet the sustainable development goals by the set deadline.
"Considering 2019 as the base year, it is 12.8 per cent of the GDP. Since this is an estimate before the Covid-19 pandemic, this financial deficit may increase,” Paudel said. "We need to use a variety of financial resources together as a useful tool to solve the financial deficit."
Nepal has good relationships with both bilateral and multilateral development partners, DPM Paudel said, thanking them for help in putting Nepal's development plans and programmes into action.
Thanking the Indian government for its continued support of Nepal's economic and social development, he said Nepal was ready to take advantage of South-to-South and triangular cooperation to get more funds for development.
"We are working to make it easier for people in Nepal to get access to financial services, and programmes have been set up to encourage the use of electronic financial services," he said.
Nepal is preparing National Financial Inclusion Strategy, Paudel said with his counterparts during the conference, adding that digitalisation and financial inclusion have been very successful in India. “We want to learn from India's successes and replicate that in Nepal.”
