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The Annapurna Express is a renowned Nepalese online news portal that publishes technology, gadgets, and future technology news from across the world.

Ramesh Lekhak has been appointed as the Chief Whip of the Nepali Congress. Party President and Parliamentary Party leader Sher Bahadur Deuba appointed him to the post as per the party’s Parliamentary Party statute.  

With the drive for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) gathering a lot of momentum, 2023 is going to be the year of consolidation in the Nepali banking sector. The first day of the new year saw the successful completion of a merger between two commercial banks, namely Kumari Bank and NCC Bank. On Jan 1, the banks announced unified business transactions as Kumari Bank Limited amid a special function held in Kathmandu. While 2022 saw Nepali commercial banks either signing M&A agreements, 2023 will see those deals becoming reality. With Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) giving its final nod, two more mergers, between Nepal Investment Bank Limited & Mega Bank, and between Global IME Bank & Bank of Kathmandu (BoK), will come to a logical conclusion in the near future. The merger deal between Kumari Bank and NCC Bank, which agreed to a swap ratio of 1:1, received final approval from the central bank in the third week of Dec 2022. Post-merger, the paid-up capital of Kumari Bank will be Rs 25.85bn while deposits will total Rs 311.34bn and loans will stand at Rs 274.55bn. Ramesh Raj Aryal has been named the CEO of Kumari Bank who was earlier the CEO of NCC Bank. Ram Chandra Khanal, who was earlier the CEO of Kumari Bank is now Deputy CEO of the new entity formed after the merger. The central bank’s board meeting on Dec 29 has given the final approval for the merger between Global IME Bank and Bank of Kathmandu. The same meeting also gave final approval for the merger between Nepal Investment Bank and Mega Bank. However, the Global IME and Bank of Kathmandu will not be able to do integrated business with the name passed by their annual general meetings. The AGMs of both banks had endorsed the resolution that the name of the post-merger entity will be ‘Global IME BOK Limited’. The central bank, however, directed them to come up with a new name, arguing that the proposed name did not have the word ‘bank’ in it. Now, both banks have agreed to start an integrated business under the name Global IME Bank. After the merger, the Chairman of the merged entity will be Chandra Prasad Dhakal while Ratna Raj Bajracharya, current CEO of Global IME will continue to be the chief executive of the new entity formed after the merger. Meanwhile, Nepal Investment Bank whose merger effort with Himalayan Bank did not materialize last year, is finally getting it right with Mega Bank. The Nepal Investment-Mega Bank merger will take place with a swap ratio of 1:09. Post-merger, the bank will be known as Nepal Investment Mega Bank with paid-up capital of Rs 34.43bn. There will be two acquisitions taking place in the banking sector in 2023. The Himalayan Bank is in the process of acquiring Civil Bank while Prabhu Bank is acquiring Century Bank. The total number of commercial banks that had reached 32 in 2014 will come down to 22 this year if all these mergers and acquisitions materialize.  

Generally, the October-March period is considered the best season to visit Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha. Tourism entrepreneurs of Bhairahawa were hoping that the start of commercial operation of the Gautam Buddha International Airport (GBIA) would bring more tourists this year. But their excitement did not last long as flights are unlikely to take place in this peak season due to the lack of the Instrument Landing System (ILS), a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather conditions, at GBIA. Currently, international flights to and from Nepal’s second international airport have been affected due to poor visibility following thick winter fog. According to Govinda Prasad Dahal, General Manager of GBIA, Himalaya Airlines and Jazeera Airways have suspended their flights since December 20 and 21, respectively. The Kuwaiti airliner Jazeera which suspended flights until the end of December has informed the airport authority that the suspension will be extended for a few more days due to unfavorable weather conditions. ILS has been installed at the airport but the system has not been brought into use. Airport officials say that Indian skies should also be used while implementing ILS. “For this, approval from the Indian government is necessary,” said Dahal. According to him, generally, visibility of 1,500 meters is required for the landing of a plane but the aircraft could be landed even in a visibility of 800 meters if ILS is brought into use. Constructed with an investment of Rs 35 billion, the airport was inaugurated on May 16, 2022. So far, there have been 154 international flights to and from the airport with 13,593 inbound passengers and 18,025 outbound passengers.

Rajendra Shakya, proprietor of Harati Handicraft Pvt Ltd, used to export handicraft products to China through both road and air routes in the past. But the closure of the Nepal-China border points at different times since the earthquake in 2015 has affected his Chinese market-oriented business badly. After the coronavirus started spreading in January 2020 globally, Nepal first closed the border with China and the northern neighbor took even more stringent measures against the outbreak, shutting down both Rasuwagadhi and Tatopani border points. The Rasuwagadhi border point was reopened in April and Tatopani a few months later in October of the same year only for the one-way traffic of goods from China to Nepal. This stopped any chance of exporting goods to China through land routes. Shakya’s exports also were affected as handicrafts could no longer be exported through the land routes. He continued exporting handicrafts on a limited scale through the air route, which is considered costly for transportation compared to land and seaways, as only chartered flights were allowed between Nepal and China until recently. After nearly three years of disturbances, China on Dec 28 opened the Rasuwagadi border point even for exports of Nepali goods in line with the end of China's 'Zero Covid' policy. Chinese officials in Kathmandu have said more two-way trade routes will be opened in 2023. "The two-way trade at the Pulan/Yari port will resume in early 2023. This will provide an opportunity for Nepali exporters to export more goods to China," said Wang Xin, Charge de Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu addressing the inauguration program of Pokhara Regional International Airport on Sunday. According to experts and businesspersons engaged in trans-Himalayan trade, the opening of land routes for exports is a welcome development. However, there will not be a significant rise in Nepal’s export to China anytime soon given the existing non-tariff barriers, they say. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world in early 2020, he saw a significant drop in demand for Nepali handicraft items in the Chinese market. “As the Chinese economy slowed in the last few years, particularly after the Covid-19 amid the 'Zero Covid' policy, demand for handicraft items in China has dropped significantly,” said Shakya. He thinks that Nepal’s exports, particularly that of handicraft goods that have been categorized as 'luxury items', will grow noticeably until demand from the northern neighbor returns to pre-Covid levels. Over the last several years, imports from China have grown steadily except for occasional hiccups such as in the fiscal year 2019/20 when the government in Nepal imposed a lockdown in March 2020 to curb coronavirus transmission that went on for nearly four months. Over the past several years, Nepal’s exports to China have dwindled leading to a massive trade deficit in the trade between the two countries. For instance, Nepal’s exports to China in the last fiscal year 2021/22 stood at just Rs 808m, with a consistent drop from Rs 2.1 billion in the fiscal year 2018/19. During the same period, imports from China grew to Rs 264.78bn in FY 2021/22 from Rs 205.51bn in FY 2018/19, according to the Department of Customs statistics. "The closure of borders has cost dearly to Nepal's exports to China as the majority of such exports take place through land routes," said Purusottam Ojha, former Secretary of Commerce. As a result, the ratio of exports to China compared to imports from the northern neighbor plunged to just 0.3 percent in the last fiscal year 2021/22 from as high as one percent in the fiscal year 2018/19. This ratio was 3.1 percent in the fiscal year 2013/14 when the country had exported goods worth Rs 2.84bn to its northern neighbor. According to Ojha, Nepal’s exports to China compared to imports have continued to remain insignificant and border closure for exports hit even the limited exports to China. “With the reopening of the Rasuwagadhi border for exports, there is the scope for growth in exports particularly in the Tibet region of China,” he said, adding, “However, Nepal will not be able to grow exports to China until quarantine and infrastructure-related bottlenecks are resolved.” According to the Nepal Trade Information Portal of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Supplies, China has been providing zero tariff facilities for about 8,000 goods originating in Nepal. Ojha observes that Nepal has yet to take advantage of the Chinese market as the country does not produce niche products that can be sold in the Chinese market. These goods make up 95 percent of the total export of Nepal to China. To receive the Chinese zero-tariff facilities, exporters are required to fulfill certain rules of origin conditions for their goods. Despite such a facility, Nepal has been failing to utilize the duty-free facility and boost exports. One of the reasons, according to officials and experts, is the strict documentation requirements to get export clearances from the Chinese authorities. According to Ojha, China has strict documentation requirements for the majority of imported food and agricultural products regarding quality, quarantine, origin, and import control. Similarly, exporters may also need to meet other criteria such as packaging requirements, pre-clearance, treatment options, labeling requirements, and container conditions for their goods. Nepal has long been seeking simplification in these criteria. During the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in April, the northern neighbor agreed to provide duty-free treatment to goods of Nepali origin covering 98 percent of tariff lines. Trade experts say that signing agreements alone would not be sufficient to boost exports, but real reasons should be explored at the business-to-business (B2B) and government-to-government (G2G) levels and address those issues. According to Ojha, Nepal's exports to China could be increased if the government attracts Chinese investments in the Nepali manufacturing sector. "One way to increase Nepali exports to China is increasing Chinese investments in the Nepali manufacturing sector," said Ojha. The World Bank in its Nepal Development Update Report in April 2021 pointed out that Nepal has the potential of exporting 12 times higher than its existing annual exports with the highest potential of boosting exports to China. The multilateral agency has termed the untapped export potential as 'missing exports'. From the perspective of destinations, Nepal's largest 'missing exports' are with China (by $$2.2bn), followed by India ($1.2bn), the United States ($800m) and Japan ($700m), according to the report. Nepal China Bilateral Trade (in bn)