NCC urges govt to focus on double-digit expansion

Kathmandu, March 1

Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) has said that the government’s sole focus should be on achieving double-digit economic growth in the next decade.

The NCC delegation led by its President Rajesh Kazi Shrestha met Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli today and handed over an 18-point suggestion to him urging the government to declare the coming decade as ‘Decade of double-digit economic growth’.

Moreover, NCC made a commitment that the country’s private sector will join hands with the government to realise the set economic growth target.

The suggestion note incorporates numerous plans that the government and private sector should jointly initiate targeting various sectors including agriculture, energy, tourism and infrastructure, to achieve the desired economic growth.

Similarly, NCC has also suggested the government to adopt different measures to reduce the cost of doing business in the country, provide assurance of rule of law, improve industrial environment and to attract investment in different sectors.

“The private sector is optimistic that the new government will highly prioritise improving the business climate in the coming days and will focus on economic agenda over others,” Shrestha said, adding that country is bound to see accelerated economic growth following collaboration between the government and the private sector to identify the existing hurdles in the economy and solving them gradually.

Similarly, Shrestha also drew the government’s attention to the problem of double taxation being levied on goods that traders and manufacturers have been facing in the new federal system.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Oli said that the government has set a target to achieve double-digit economic growth within the first quarter of fiscal 2018-19 and vowed that the government will closely work with the private sector to achieve this target.

Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada, who was present at the meeting, also expressed commitment that the government would do the needful to implement all logical suggestions of NCC.