Kathmandu, October 29:

If you have worthy business ideas, don’t worry about the capital to realise them. To encourage better ideas for business sector and entrepreneurship development, GTZ, private sector promotion (PSP) is to extend financial support to ‘convincing business idea’. Dibyamani Rajbhandari, president of European Economic Chamber of Commerce-Nepal talking to The Himalayan Times said, “The concept of public private partnership (PPP) was initiated in 1999. However, its result is yet to be realised.”

He urged the Nepali business community to grab the opportunity for starting business with better ideas. If you have an European partner and have better ideas, then you can get at least fifty per cent grant from the German government to do business, says Rajbhandari.

GTZ in Nepal works as a facilitator to get things done which is good for people who have good ideas and can convert them into business proposition, Rajbhandari said. He added that EEC has been advocating and exploring new business opportunities to boost the Nepali private sector.

He expressed the hope that the German government would also help in selling Nepali expertise. G B Banjara, coordinator of PSP-GTZ, said that the private sector in Nepal is getting ready to compete globally to meet the WTO provisions and opportunities. Similarly, increased foreign investments would certainly help transfer new technologies, train local specialists, boost the quality of local products and create new jobs, said Banjara.

The German development policy has boosted this trend and has begun to implement development partnership with the private sector, which is generally called Public Private Partnership (PPP). Our aim under the development partnership is to combine interests of private companies and those of our partner countries in such a way that both parties achieve their objectives more effectively and in a more sustainable fashion, he said.

As our aim in Nepal is to promote sustainable development, we generally expect long-term commitment on the part of our partner companies, said Banjara. He said that GTZ can offer private companies a number of advantages in foreign business. In Nepal, GTZ, together with private companies and local partners has implemented a wide range of development partnerships. The focused areas of public private partnership have been herb product promotion and landslide prevention projects, said Banjara.

Sameer Khanal, advisor of PSP, said that business ideas matter a lot for forging partnerships and for availing financial help being granted by the German government. Khanal informed that the PPP’s financial contribution consists of a maximum of 150,000 euro in the case of an insurance settlement.