Kathmandu, June 28

National Trading Ltd (NTL) is finding it difficult to clear the stock of Chinese government granted induction stoves despite entity providing them at a steep discount of over 50 per cent of its cost price.

Being offered at just Rs 4,000 per set against its cost price of Rs 11,995, consumers were expected to throng NTL to purchase these low-cost induction stoves. However, NTL has been able to sell only 600 pieces of induction stoves in the last one week out of 10,000 induction cookers that NTL had in stock.

Out of the 11,300 induction stoves that the Chinese government had provided as an immediate relief to fuel-strapped Nepal under the Official Development Assistance (ODA) of China to Nepal in March last year, NTL had sold 1,300 induction stoves a few weeks ago. This means that NTL has sold altogether 1,800 induction stoves out of the total given by the Chinese government.

NTL started selling the remaining 10,000 induction stoves from last week.

“Though we had managed to sell 1,300 induction stoves in the first phase in just a week, sales of induction heaters in the second phase has been tepid. This might be because we have been selling them from only one counter of NTL, which is based in Teku,” an official of NTL said requesting anonymity.

Meanwhile, Laba Raj Joshi, general manager of NTL, said that the sale was slow especially because NTL is not selling Chinese induction stoves in bulk to traders. “As these induction stoves have come in the form of grant to Nepal from the Chinese government, the government does not have the moral ground to sell them to traders who would later retail them in the market with bigger profit margin,” he said.