Kathmandu, September 8, 2006

Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (TAAN) today informed that all trekking agencies and individuals need to have Trekking Registration Certificate (TRC) from October 1, if they want to go for trekking in areas specified by the government such as Annapurna Area, Khaptad National Park (KNP), Dhaulagiri Area, Makalu Barun, Sagarmatha Region and Langtang area.

President of TAAN, Narendra BC said the decision to implement TRC was taken in an attempt to control illegal operators in the trekking business as foreign-based travel agents, tour leaders, tour guides including Nepal-based NGOs and INGOs have all developed trekking packages.

This has greatly affected trekking agencies which are registered with the government and pay taxes to the government.

BC informed a gathering of journalists that the TRC is being introduced in a bid to revive more than 600 trekking agencies currently facing survival threats.

He said that due to illegal business operations, there is massive under-cutting in trekking packages for tourists which is pushing Nepal’s trekking destinations to a category of ‘dumping tourists’.

As per the report of TAAN, TRC will effectively systematise trekking business and help tourists go for trekking in specified destinations.

Rising NPLs in major banks worry experts, officials

Bankers, both from the private as well as the government sector and members of parliament, have expressed serious concerns over the spiralling nonperforming loans (NPLs) in the banking sector in Nepal, especially in the Nepal Bank Ltd (NBL) and Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB).

This ever-increasing threat was discussed at a meeting of the Finance Committee of the Parliament (FCP) today. One of the major concerns is that big borrowers of NBL and RBB are not repaying loans on time.

This has pushed the whole banking system towards chaos, feared bankers. FCP members today raised various questions about the reform process going on in NBL and RBB, and also took stock of the private sector banks.

Dr Dilli Raj Khanal, UML lawmaker and member of FCP, raised queries over the reform process in RBB and asked the management team on why reform is ‘slowing’ and bad loans are not being recovered in time.

Janardan Acharya, spokesperson and chief operating officer of RBB management team, said that the bank management has accomplished various tasks entrusted to it such as developing an international level accounting system, expediting human resource development and adoption of latest computer technologies.