Kathmandu, September 5:

Experts in the foreign employment sector today urged the government to prepare a budget that addresses problems and demands of people in the foreign employment sector that has been generating billions of rupees as remittance.

Speaking at an interaction, Constituent Assembly member Dr Tilak Rawal said that forthcoming budget should not be a populist one but should focus on the development activities and other pertinent sectors of the economy.

Talking about the involvement of women in foreign employment, he asked them to be strong and wise enough to save themselves in foreign countries.

According to a recent study, of the 963,708 Nepali workers working in foreign countries, around 78,000 are women.

The World Bank estimates that around Rs 102.4 billion informally entered the country as remittance in 2007. The remittance through foreign employment contributes 18 per cent to the GDP and women worker’s account to 11 per cent of the remittance entering the country.

Tilak Ranabhat, president of Nepal Foreign Employment Entrepreneurs Association (NFEEA) said the diplomatic offices needed to be revamped and the policies needed to be revised to address the problems in foreign employment sector. He also urged the government to allocate fund for the marketing in foreign countries and help Nepali workers search better jobs with high pay.

Former president of NFEEA Dan Bahadur Tamang said remittance entering in the country

in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2064/65 had crossed Rs 125 billion in the first 11 months of the last fiscal year.”

Saying that remittance is a major contributor to the national economy, Sharu Joshi Shrestha, regional programme manager for migration at UNIFEM, demanded concerted efforts from all sectors for the development of the foreign employment sector.