Kathmandu, April 11

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli today urged the private sector to engage in healthy competition in the domestic market and support the government in the nation building process.

Addressing the 53rd annual general meeting of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNC- CI) in the Capital today, Oli mentioned that malpractices in businesses will deteriorate the business environment and asked the entire private sector to promote healthy business environment.

“Today, the government has set a greater mission to build a prosperous nation and the private sector is the major force for the entire development process.

Thus, it is important that the private sector runs and expands businesses in a healthy manner, abiding by all existing laws,” said Oli.

Stating that it is imperative for the country to draw mega investments in different sectors for the government’s vision of ‘Happy Nepali: Prosperous Nepal’ to materialise, the country’s executive head urged private sector to invest whole-heartedly and approach the government if they face any hurdles.

“The government will address all logical concerns,” added Oli.

Vowing to make existing policies business-friendly and amending old policies to make them contextual to ease the doing business environment, Oli also assured that the government will extend additional support to the private sector, especially in the industrial sector, in the future. However, Prime Minister Oli urged investors to primarily invest in export-oriented industries, which according to him, will help address the widening trade deficit of the country.

“The country is implementing federalism for the first time and it is natural to have to deal with a few challenges in this juncture. However, all these challenges will be sorted out gradually and Nepal will be one of the top business-friendly destinations,” added Oli.

On the occasion, Bhawani Rana, president of FNCCI, said that though contextualisation of business-related policies and endorsement of new crucial policies have encouraged the private sector in recent days, the rising interest rates in the banking sector has been troubling investors. She asked the government to adopt necessary measures to maintain stability of interest rates.