LETTERS: Virgin land for investment

Apropos of the news story “Nepal virgin land for investment” (THT, July 9, Page 2), indeed Nepal is virgin for investment. Ncell has shown that you can make money in a short span by investing in this country. We should open all sectors for FDI including hydro, agriculture, tour and trek agencies, domestic airlines, hotels, restaurants, insurance, banks, casinos, theme parks, movie studios, hospitals, export and import, pharmaceuticals, irrigation, mining, highway construction, schools and colleges from kindergarten to medical, engineering etc, commercial farming and so on and so forth. It is important that we offer 100 percent sole ownership to FDI to cut out local middlemen for obvious reasons. Since China has not shown much interest in investing big money at its backyard as it has done in some faraway African countries as well as in Europe, it is perhaps time to distribute licenses locally either through our VIPs during their visit or through commerce section of our embassy. Giving license on the spot will help in boosting FDI confidence. We should also analyze why some businesses like hotels which were ready to receive guests did not open their doors. There is one at Ring Road near Swoyambhu which apparently started with FDI and there is another one at Pulchowk, a12-story or so tall building. While doing business in Nepal is still as difficult as chewing iron chiura, if we know why some businesses like hotels failed to open their doors and why others are shutting down, to help us respond to investor curiosity.  Obviously investors will do their own investigation on the scope of business and return.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Remittance

I am writing this piece to throw some light on the very nitty-gritty of how money has been invested in our country. What I do know from what I have been seeing in Nepal is that there is a lot of money that has been pouring into the country for decades when Nepalese started to join the British Army. And not only that since 2001 a sea of people emigrated to Western countries and a large number of people also have been working in the Middle East. I can’t really fathom how much money has come into Nepal up to now. But everybody knows that the Nepalese living overseas send in billions of rupees every year from which Nepal’s prosperity could have been achieved to a large extent had that money been used in constructive developmental activities.

Sadly much of the hard-earned money has been used for non-productive purposes. As for investment, it has been mostly used in unproductive things such as buying real estate or jewellery. It may be beneficial at the individual level. However, if we see this from the country’s perspective it is devastating because money is not meant to be used in that irrational manner. I would not blame the people who have done this because they do not have any sense of security to invest money in other developmental areas which may boost the economy of the nation.

Shiva Neupane, Melbourne