Kathmandu, September 19

The Investment Board Nepal (IBN) is preparing to host yet another investment summit in March 2019, exactly two years after similar mega summit was organised in 2017, when the government had signed letter of intent (LoI) for investment worth above $13.51 billion with foreign investors.

Though the exact date of the event is yet to be decided, the IBN board meeting on Tuesday decided to host the investment summit to promote Nepal as a feasible destination for investment and draw investment in different mega projects.

“Such investment event needs to be hosted at regular intervals as they are key to letting potential investors aware of investment prospects in Nepal,” informed Maha Prasad Adhikari, chief executive officer (CEO) of IBN.

However, it is to be noted that the government has almost completely failed to capitalise the investment intents expressed by foreigners during the investment summit held in 2017. This has raised questions on IBN’s plan to host similar investment summit in the future as the country has been failing to turn investment commitments and intents into reality.

According to Adhikari, however, the previous investment summit was hosted at a time when Nepal had just started witnessing political stability. “However, today we can boast of stable politics and investment policies in the country. The planned event solely intends to inform foreign communities about the business-friendly plans and policies that the government has rolled out so far and is planning to initiate,” said Adhikari.

Moreover, he clarified that of the total intent for investment that Nepal received through the investment summit in 2017, more than $10 billion was for the metro rail and the second international airport in Nijgadh. “Though we received investment intents for these projects at that time, both of these projects were not ready for implementation as we were not even clear on the construction modality of these projects,” added Adhikari.

He further stated that turning investment intents and commitments into reality is a gradual process and might take years.

Meanwhile, IBN has stated that it will develop ample project banks to attract foreign investments through the upcoming investment summit and make sure that all investment-related laws and policies are endorsed with necessary amendments before the summit in March next year.