Kathmandu, April 3:

The government, with the support of UNDP-funded Enhancing Nepal’s Trade Related Capacity (ENTReC) project, today launched a roundtable aimed at promoting active involvement of the private sector in the policy making process.

The roundtable is expected to facilitate active and institutionalised involvement of the private sector in trade and investment policy making process, said Prachanda Man Shrestha, national programme director of ENTReC and joint secretary at the ministry of industry, commerce and supplies (MoICS), at a consultation programme today.

Stating that trade is not only exchanging of goods and services, he said it also encompasses other areas including investment, production, processing and industrialisation, which needs to be friendlier to the private sector. “Trade in today’s globalised context would be much more private sector-based, thus its involvement in policy making is crucial,” he added.

Bharat Bahadur Thapa, secretary at MoICS, emphasised on the private sector’s proactive role in devising trade and investment related policies so that Nepali business could also become competitive in international trade. “The government will gradually have no direct role in trade and investment related issues. It will serve as the facilitator and concentrate more on infrastructure building,” he added.

Making a presentation, Gopal Tiwari, private sector development and communication officer at ENTReC, highlighted various components of the project. He urged that the private sector organisations such as FNCCI, CNI, NCC and various chambers of commerce to set up a small unit to deal with domestic, bilateral, regional and multilateral trading arrangements in a professional and innovative manner.

“Government policies are not discouraging as such and their weak implementation has always been a major concern for the private sector,” said Diwakar Golchha, first vice-president of FNCCI. He noted that Nepal’s economy started backtracking following the introduction of some tax and trade policies in early 2000, which were not business and investment friendly.

Industrialist Rajendra Khetan said that enhancement of trade competitiveness would be only an illusion unless the cost of doing business and bureaucratic red tape are reduced significantly. “Despite Nepal having policies in place, these two factors are notably hindering its growth,” he added.