KATHMANDU, MARCH 6
The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has slashed the gold import quota in a bid to curtail the depletion of the country's foreign exchange reserves.
Revising its unified directive on Sunday, the central bank has said that the banks are henceforth only allowed to import up to 10 kg of gold per day.
The earlier limit had been set at 20 kg a day.
The latest macroeconomic report revealed that the gold imports had nearly doubled to Rs 23.26 billion in the first six months of the current fiscal compared to Rs 12.21 billion worth of imports of the precious yellow metal in the corresponding period of previous fiscal.
Meanwhile, the gross foreign exchange reserves of the country had shrunk by 15.9 per cent in the review period to $9.89 billion. Based on the imports of six months of 2021-22, the foreign exchange reserves of the banking sector was sufficient to cover the prospective merchandise imports of 7.2 months, and merchandise and services imports of 6.6 months, as per the central bank report.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 7, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
