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The Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) has urged the visiting Japanese Members of Parliament (MPs) to bring in more investment to Nepal from Japan.

Members of the Upper House of the Parliament of Japan as well as the members of the Nepal-Japan Parliamentary Friendship Group Kobayashi Kazuhiro and Nagai Manbu are on Nepal visit.

During the meeting with the NCC team on Thursday, the NCC representatives asked the Japanese MPs for their initiatives to increase Japanese investment in Nepal adding that diplomatic and economic relations between Nepal and Japan are historical.  

On the occasion, NCC Chairman Rajendra Malla said that mutual cooperation between Nepal and Japan should be further strengthened through increased investment and business partnership.

Malla also requested the Japanese MPs to create an environment for more investment in Nepal's hydropower, infrastructure, tourist and technology sectors. 

He said that technology transfer in agriculture would help Nepal to get more benefits.

Indian playback singer Shilpa Rao arrived in Kathmandu on Thursday. She is set to make her debut appearance in Nepal at a concert event taking place at Prive Nepal Club of the Soaltee Hotel on Friday.
The event is a collaborative effort between Roar Entertainment and Arena Entertainment. Mohit Basnet, the coordinator of the event, shared that individuals interested in attending can purchase tickets using the My Pay digital wallet. The hosting duties for the program will be undertaken by former Miss Nepal Namrata Shrestha and Shrijal Rupakheti.
Renowned as a Grammy-nominated and highly sought-after Indian playback and independent singer recognized for her diverse musical style, Rao has lent her voice to numerous Bollywood favorites like ‘Tose Naina’, ‘Khuda Jaane’, ‘Malang’, ‘Meherban’, ‘Bulleya’, ‘Manmarziyan’, ‘Kalank’, ‘Ghungroo’, and ‘Tere Hawale’, among others.

In a democracy true to its name, the Parliament (the legislative), one of the three principal organs of the state, makes laws. Elected representatives voice concerns of the public in its hallowed chambers and make the other organ of the state, the executive, address them. Well-informed, engaging and enlightening discussions on every matter before it, including draft laws, make these chambers truly representative of the will of the people. Parliamentary debates in India and the United Kingdom, for example, show how the lawmakers hold their governments to account. 

The judiciary has a very important role to play in a democracy. As the final interpreter of the Constitution, it checks the constitutionality of laws and keeps a tab on the government and the parliament from a moral high ground. More often than not, our own judiciary has shown how to do it. If its precedents are not enough, there are enough lessons to learn from the immediate neighborhood and beyond on how to tame a regime seeking to trample on civil liberties.   

A constant judicial vigilance is necessary in a functioning democracy. This is also because the executive even seeks to bring the judiciary under its ambit through some sort of parliamentary control by violating judicial independence. The parliament often exhibits the tendency to do the bidding of a majority even at the expense of the larger interest of the public and the country it is supposed to serve, under pressure from the government of the day, in a blatant violation of the letter and the spirit of the charter.  Who knows this better than the Nepali people, mute spectators to spectacles where a ready majority raises its hands automatically in support when a whip-wielding executive seeks to enforce its will in an audacious breach of the principles of separation of powers as well as checks and balances?

In young democracies in particular, the parliament often becomes a special-purpose vehicle designed to serve the executive and other powerful vested interests instead of taking them to task. This becomes easy when the opposition and the ruling parties come together to serve vested interests. The people pay the price when the executive seeks to move ahead by ignoring the concerns of the opposition raised in the House and the latter obstructs it in its desperate bid to have its way.

Recently, the main opposition obstructed the Parliament for days on end calling for a high-level commission to investigate a recent case of a huge gold consignment concealed in brake shoes passing through a high-security Tribhuvan International Airport. Before that, the party had obstructed the Parliament over the Prime Minister’s remarks about a transporter’s ‘great efforts’ toward elevating him to the coveted position. The opposition has every right to ask difficult questions and seek answers from the government, but is the House obstruction an effective way to hold the government accountable?  

Notably, opposition parties other than the main opposition have accused the main opposition CPN-UML, Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Center) of holding the parliament hostage to fulfill vested interests. Secretive talks between the leadership of the three major parties ‘magically’ ending House stalemates suggest some comfy arrangements. ApEx has repeatedly raised the issue of the troika turning the Parliament into a rubber-stamp of sorts through its extensive coverage, as part of efforts to make democracy deliver.

Indeed, the leadership of the three parties could have done so much for the people grappling with challenges like rising market prices, shrinking job opportunities, endemic corruption, instability and calamities that are becoming more and more disastrous due to development activities undertaken with scant regard for the carrying capacity of the terrains. Their disastrous performance in a difficult situation will not be lost on a people they claim to be serving, day in and day out.  Neither the government nor the main opposition nor any other force has the right to hold the legislative organ of the state hostage in its desperate bid to fulfill its overt or covert interests. 

Sadly, even the Speaker and the President, the guardian of the Constitution, have appeared helpless in the face of repeated deadlocks. Summing up, all entities that constitute the parliament should learn lessons from repeated obstructions and make every effort to ensure its smooth functioning. The sovereign body has some crucial legislations pending, including those related to transitional justice and money-laundering. It’s time the parliament moved ahead with a sense of urgency and made up for the lost time.

Flights have been affected in Karnali for the past two days due to bad weather. The flights have been disrupted as it has been raining continuously.

Flights could not take place to and from Juphal airport in Dolpa, Simkot airport in Humla and Talcha airport in Mugu due to the incessant rainfall.

Rajendra Thakulla, an engineer with the Thulibheri Municipality, Dolpa, said he is stranded in Nepalgunj due to the disruption of flight. "It has been two days waiting for the flight to operate. I have not been able to fly to Dolpa due to the bad weather. There is also the problem of travelling by road," he lamented.

Most of the people in these remote mountainous districts of the Karnali Province rely on flights as most of the roads are damaged due to floods and landslides during the monsoon. They are affected as the flights also could not operate due to unfavorable weather.

Although Dolpa is linked by roadway, there is still the problem of travelling by road in the rainy season. Road travel has become risky as the water level in rivers and streams has increased.

Humla is not yet linked by road.

Nepal’s foreign trade has declined in the first month of the current fiscal year 2023/24. According to the latest foreign trade statistics released by the Department of Customs, both imports and exports declined in Shrawan (mid-July to mid-August). The imports shrunk by 1.56 percent in Shrawan as the country imported goods worth 129.23bn in Shrawan. The imports in the first month of 2022/23 stood at Rs 131.28bn. On the other hand, Nepal’s exports decreased by 8.65 percent to Rs 13.52bn. The country had exported goods worth Rs 14.80bn in the first month of 2022/23. With both imports and exports declining, the country’s total foreign trade decreased by 2.28 percent.

According to the Customs Department, there has been a big decline in the import of petroleum products in Shrawan. The country’s petroleum products’ import bills stood at Rs 21.98bn compared to Rs 25bn during the same period of the last fiscal.

There has been growth in the imports of iron and steel compared to the last fiscal. Nepal imported iron and steel worth Rs 12.95bn in this Shrawan compared to Rs 11.23bn in the last Shrawan. The country’s vegetable imports stood at Rs 2.5bn, medicine imports at Rs 2.81bn and vehicle imports at Rs 4.29bn.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 31. 52 points to close at 2,013.93 points on Thursday.

Similarly, the sensitive index dropped by 4. 72 points to close at 385. 56 points.

A total of 4,657,137-unit shares of 275 companies were traded for Rs 1. 55 billion.

Meanwhile, Kutheli Bukhari Small Hydropower Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 9. 99 percent. Likewise, Molung Hydropower Company Limited was the top loser as its price fell by 8. 54 percent.

At the end of the day, the total market capitalization stood at Rs 3. 01 trillion.

With the contraction in economic activities, digital payments in Nepal have taken a beating in the last fiscal year. While the expansion of retail digital payments remains stable, there was a reduction in the high-volume digital transactions primarily conducted through the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) during the fiscal year 2022/23.

According to Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), overall digital payment has declined by 13.22 percent in 2022/23. The NRB data shows total digital payments amounted to Rs 51640.88bn in 2022/23 compared to Rs 59508.837bn in 2021/22. As high-volume transactions have declined, NRB said that the decline in RTGS has affected the overall digital payments in this fiscal.

The latest statistics of the NRB show RTGS payments plummeted by 18.61 percent in 2022/23. In the review period, the settlements amounted to Rs 34,289.977bn compared to Rs 42,134.018bn in 2021/22.

An RTGS is a funds transfer system in which the transfer of funds between one bank and another takes place in ‘real-time’ and on a ‘gross’—transaction by transaction basis. The NRB data shows RTGS transactions increased in the first three months of the current fiscal year, then started to decline gradually.

However, retail payments through wallets, QR codes, mobile banking, and ConnectIPS surged in the current fiscal year, according to NRB. The payment through ConnectIPS grew by 33.51 percent in the last fiscal year. According to NRB, payments worth Rs 4,114.628bn were made through ConnectIPS in 2022/23 compared to Rs 3,081.764bn in 2021/22. Similarly, mobile banking transactions surged by 80.64 percent to Rs 2,185.999bn in 2022/23 from Rs 1,210.134bn in 2021/22. There has been a whopping 159.67 percent growth in QR payments in the last fiscal year as Nepalis made payments totaling Rs 245.412bn.

Digital payments which were on an increasing trend till 2021/22, reversed in 2022/23. Bankers and experts point out the current economic slowdown for this. According to them, the spending capacity of consumers has been hard hit by rising inflation resulting in a decline in digital payments.

Guru Prasad Paudel, Chief of the Payment System Department at NRB, has said that the reduction in digital transactions reflects the economic activity’s contraction. “The decline in payments through RTGS has led to a decrease in overall digital transactions,” said Paudel.

There was a significant surge in digital transactions in Nepal in early 2020 following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The lockdowns compelled individuals to remain indoors, leading to the swift adoption of digital payment methods and online shopping for daily necessities. This shift was supported by the growing utilization of smartphones, with e-commerce and point-of-sale (POS) transactions emerging as notable trends.

Post-pandemic, digital platforms including connectIPS, e-wallets, mobile banking, internet banking, QR codes, and bank cards are being used widely as customers can use these instruments in self-service mode.

The election for the presidents of the parliamentary committees under the House of Representatives has been slated for Monday.

Speaker Devraj Ghimire fixed the date after holding a discussion with the chief whips of parties on Thursday, Speaker’s press advisor Shekhar Adhikari said.

According to him, the election for the presidents of parliamentary committees will be held at 1 pm on August 28.

Though the parliamentary committees were formed, the meeting has been conducted under the chairmanship of senior members without electing the presidents.

There are 10 thematic committees under the House of Representatives and two joint committees with representation from the members of the National Assembly.

Speaker Ghimire had been urging parties to pick the leadership on consensus.

The notice for the election will be published today itself.

It has already been agreed among the major political parties that Nepali Congress will lead four, CPN-UML three, CPN (Maoist Center) two and CPN (Unified Socialist), Janata Samajbadi Party and Janamat Party will lead one committee each.

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