Kathmandu, December 26:

Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat said adopting a federal system was a tough challenge and a lot of debate should be initiated before adopting such a system.

Speaking at a programme titled ‘Restructuring of the State and Financial Decentralisation National Consultation Seminar” he said Nepal should remain a common market because the nation can only be competitive internationally if our exports were cheap.

“Recent reports about business being taxed twice or thrice firstly by the state and then by regional groups are worrying. This significantly raises the price of our exports and in the era of globalisation, this is very worrying,” said Mahat.

He said local level needs massive capacity building, if decentralisation was to be effective. “We have failed as this exercise was not properly undertaken in previous decentralisation efforts.”