Government sets minimum threshold for foreign direct investment at Rs 50m

Kathmandu, May 23

The government has set a minimum foreign investment threshold of Rs 50 million in the country. The Cabinet meeting today decided to hike the minimum foreign investment threshold to Rs 50 million from the existing Rs five million.

The recently enacted Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Bill has a provision which states that the government will set a minimum threshold for foreign investment and publish it in the Nepal Gazette. The government has raised the minimum foreign investment threshold based on the same provision.

The Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Bill was authenticated by the president in the second week of March.

However, failure of the government, especially the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, to timely determine the minimum threshold for foreign investment had been barring the Department of Industry (DoI) from giving nod to overseas projects for the last three weeks.

Initially, DoI had recommended the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies to set a minimum threshold of Rs 70 million for foreign investment.

However, the ministry had tabled the proposal to set the minimum threshold of Rs 50 million for foreign investment.