Kathmandu, October 30:

Government expenses during the first month of the current fiscal year has increased by 15 per cent amounting to Rs 3.5 billion.

According to Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the total outstanding domestic debt has declined to Rs 86.6 billion in mid-August 2005 from Rs 90 billion in mid-July 2005.

NRB says, “the cash balance of the government with central bank has brought down the total net outstanding domestic debt during the review period.”

In contrary to the claims by exporters and business sector NRB data shows that total exports and total imports has also increased by 15.6 per cent and 34.4 per cent, respectively.

However exporters claim that exports have gone down by over 37 per cent. During the same period last year, exports and imports had increased by 22.5 per cent and 5.8 per cent respectively, says NRB.

During the review period, trade deficit has increased by 49.5 per cent due to higher growth rate of imports. In the total trade, Indian share has declined to 63.2 per cent in mid-August 2005 from 64.3 per cent a year ago, says NRB. Exports to India, according to central bank, rose by 23.1 per cent to Rs 3.4 billion this year in comparison to a rise of 37.3 per cent last year.

Exports to other countries rose by 3.9 per cent to Rs 1.8 billion. In terms of the composition of the total exports to India, primary goods and manufactured goods constituted 30.3 per cent and 69.7 per cent respectively while their respective shares were 22.9 per cent and 77.1 per cent last year.

On the basis of monetary survey, the overall balance of payment (BoP) surplus stood at Rs 427.5 million in the first month of 2005-06.

In the same month last year, BoP deficit had amounted to Rs 2.7 billion. The higher inflows of foreign assistance and remittances accounted for a surplus in BoP this year.

The gross foreign exchange reserves went up by four per cent to Rs 132.2 billion in mid-August 2005.

Of this, the convertible currency reserve rose by 8.8 per cent and non-convertible currency declined by 40 per cent, states the NRB press release.

The non-debt resources (revenue, non-budgetary receipts, others and foreign grants) has increased by 27.7 per cent to Rs 6.7 billion in mid-August compared to a significant rise of 52 per cent last year.

Despite the satisfactory increase in foreign grants, the mobilisation of non-debt resources decelerated primarily due to lower increment in revenue mobilisation.

NRB report states that the government budget surplus, during this period has increased by 45.3 per cent to Rs 3.2 billion. In the same period last year, budget surplus had increased by 279.4 per cent to Rs 2.2 billion.

National wholesale price index on a point-to-point has also increased by 9.3 per cent in mid-August 2005. However, the index had gone up by only 6.8 per cent in the same month last year.

Nepse index has increased by 59.5 index points (24.2 per cent ) to 300.05 in mid-August 2005.

The other share market indicators such as the share price, the number of listed companies and market capitalisation has also increased.