Friday, April 10, 2020

Government forms external resources mobilisation committee

The government has formed an external source mobilisation committee to effectively mobilise the external resources received from multilateral development partners to combat the spread of the coronavirus and the unfavourable situation arising out of it.
“As the coronavirus will have more lasting impact on countries like Nepal which has limited resources, external support and resources are crucial to such countries,” finance minister Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada said, proposing to form the committee led by finance secretary in a meeting with multilateral development partners that was held today through a video conference.
“The committee will also comprise members of government agencies, private sector and development partners,” the finance minister said, adding that the coronavirus pandemic is the biggest human and economic crisis of the 21st century.
The finance minister also sought further support from development partners to fight the situation caused by the coronavirus citing that traditional support policies and programmes of development partners will not be enough to combat the coronavirus and its impact.
Stressing on the need for collaborative efforts to fight against it, he also promised that Nepal will leave no stone unturned to fight against the pandemic and revive businesses and economy.
Though, the country has foreign exchange reserve that can sustain the imports of 8 months’ of merchandise and service imports, the finance minister, on the occasion, also asked the multilateral development partners to differ the loan and interest payment schedule as a precaution that the impact of pandemic could be longer.
Highlighting the crucial role of development partners in the process, the finance minister has sought an extra time just to ensure that forex reserve may not deplete due to dwindling exports receipt and decreasing remittance that is going to drop further in the months to come as most of the labour destination countries have been hit by the pandemic. Nepal has also closed the international traffic to contain the coronavirus, which has left some 30,000 foreign employment aspirants in dilemma.
The participating representatives of multilateral development partners accepted Nepal’s proposal to form a committee that will be formed under the finance secretary Shishir Dhungana.
Representatives of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, International Finance Corporation, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the United Nations took part in the video conference.
The representatives of malitaral development partner agencies – in the meeting – stressed on the need to ensure availability of health resources to cope with the pandemic and effective policies and programmes to revive the economy.

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