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CPN (Maoist Center) Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been elected as the party’s Parliamentary Party leader. A Parliamentary Party meeting held in Singha Durbar on Thursday unanimously elected Dahal as the party leader. Hit Raj Pandey has been elected as the chief whip. Similarly, Narayan Kaji Shrestha has been picked as the party leader of the National Assembly. The Maoist Center won 32 seats in the recently held elections. A meeting of the office bearers was held prior to the Parliamentary Party meeting. The meeting discussed power sharing and future strategy among other issues.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) plunged by 0. 01 points to close at 1,867.21 points on Thursday. Similarly, the sensitive index surged by 1. 72 points to close at 367. 06 points. A total of 3,111,833 unit shares of 247 companies were traded for Rs 1. 11 billion. Meanwhile, Srijanshil Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Lmited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 10. 00 percent. Likewise, Adhikhola Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 7. 70 percent. At the end of the day, the total market capitalization stood at Rs 2. 70 trillion.

Newly elected lawmakers took the oath of office and secrecy on Thursday. Senior member of the Parliament Pashupati Shumsher JB Rana administered the oath of office secrecy amidst a program at the New Baneshwor-based Parliament building this afternoon. Rana took the oath of office and secrecy from President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Wednesday. Almost all the lawmakers had reached the Parliament building wearing national dress and some wearing customs that reflect their cultural identity. As many as 14 lawmakers took the oath in their mother tongue. The lawmakers took the oath 33 days after the election to the House of Representatives. There are 275 lawmakers in the Parliament. The logos were also distributed to the lawmakers after the oath taking ceremony.  

Newly elected lawmakers have reached the Parliament building to take the oath of office and secrecy on Thursday. They will take the oath of office secrecy amidst a program at the New Baneshwor-based Parliament building at 1 pm today. Almost all the lawmakers have reached the Parliament building wearing national dress and some wearing customs that reflect their cultural identity. Senior member of the Parliament Pashupati Shumsher JB Rana will administer the oath of office and secrecy to the newly elected lawmakers.    

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The price of gold has increased by Rs 300 per tola in the domestic market on Thursday. According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the precious yellow metal is being traded at Rs 101, 500 per tola today. The gold was traded at Rs 101, 200 per tola on Wednesday. Meanwhile, tejabi gold is being traded at Rs 101, 000 per tola. Similarly, the price of silver has increased by Rs 5 and is being traded at Rs 1,405 per tola today.

With the government lifting restrictions on the import of mobile phones above $300, the Nepali gadget market is seeing the gradual launch of new handsets and major smartphone brands preparing to introduce the latest models in the market. Realme, one of the world's fastest-growing technology brands, has become the first to launch a flagship handset after the end of import restrictions. The Chinese brand on Tuesday announced the launch of realme 10 Pro+5G, the best mid range premium smartphone with a curved vision display. The realme 10 Pro was launched in India on December 8 after unveiling it in China in November. The Realme 10 Pro+5G is the segment’s first flagship smartphone equipped with a 120Hz curved vision display. The smartphone is only 2.33mm thin and has the narrowest bottom bezel on a curved display smartphone with a 93.65 percent screen-to-body ratio. It’s the world's First OLED display to receive a TUV Rheinland Flicker Free certificate. The phone comes with an attractive hyperspace design with an ultra-light body that weighs only 173 grams and boasts a 5,000mAh battery allowing the smartphone to charge up to 50 percent in just 17 minutes. The smartphone is powered by Dimensity 1080 5G Chipset with a 6nm TSMC high-efficiency processor with a 5,20,000 AnTuTu Benchmark. Realme has used a customized 0.65mm secondary tempered high-strength glass for durability, claiming that it is drop-resistant and has passed the industry’s rigorous 1-meter drop test. Equipped with a flagship-level 108MP ProLight camera with Nonapixel Plus Technology, the phone features such as Super Group Portrait, One Take, and Street Photography Mode 3.0 with Watermark to take stunning photos. The primary sensor is upgraded from 50MP to 108MP, while the 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro lenses remain unchanged. “We are thrilled to unveil the newest member of the 10 Pro series, the Realme 10 Pro+5G. This is the segment’s first smartphone equipped with a flagship-level Curved Vision Display,” said Munish Giri, Country Head of realme Nepal. The phone is available in Hyperspace Gold color in an 8GB+128GB storage option at the price of Rs. 45,999. The phone will be available all across Nepal from Dec 24. Realme has become the world’s no. 6 smartphone brands in Q2 2021 with a smartphone portfolio from entry-level up to flagship segments including GT Series, Number Series, Narzo Series, and C Series.  

With the country's revenue administration struggling to meet revenue targets, the government has been raising almost all internal loans as targeted in the last few years. According to the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO), the government raised 97 percent of targeted internal loans in the last fiscal year 2022/22. The target was to raise Rs239 billion while the government raised as much as Rs131.84 billion. In the preceding two fiscal years of 2020/21 and 2019/20, the government had raised as much as 99.56 percent and 99.95 percent of the target internal debts respectively. In those two years too, the government had collected less than the targeted revenue. Since FY2019/20, the government has struggled to raise the targeted revenue. The revenue target for FY2021-22 was Rs1180.60 billion but the collection stood at only Rs1113.84 billion. In FY2020/21, the revenue collection was 92.69 percent of the target, according to Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO). In FY2019-20, it targeted to collect Rs981 billion but could collect only Rs705.49 billion. Economic activities and the lives of the people were deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 affecting revenue collection. “When the government can raise revenue as expected, pressure on internal loans grows,” said Hira Neupane, information officer at PDMO. “We usually raise targeted revenue if not downward adjustment made during the mid-term review of the budget.” When the resources in the government treasury remain unspent because of the low spending capacity of the government, it has a history of abandoning raising internal loans. In FY2013/14, the government had raised only 45.42 percent of targeted internal loans as it failed to spend available resources from revenue and other sources adequately. PDMO said in its annual report 2021/22 that whether the government raises internal debt as targeted depends on the availability of the financial resources in its treasury. There are instances in the past when the government refrained from meeting the internal debt target due to its inability to spend the allocated budget. According to FGCO, in FY2018/19, the government raised only 56.04 percent of the targeted domestic debt when budget spending stood at just 84.44 percent of the allocations. Raising internal loans is also an easier alternative for the government to raise resources compared to foreign resources. It is because the disbursement of foreign loans depends on the government's expenditure as foreign lenders reimburse based on the government’s expenditure. Foreign loans are usually used for capital expenditure and the government’s rack records of spending capital budget have consistently remained poor which results in poor disbursement of foreign loans. When it comes to domestic debt, the government can raise the amount anytime it wants as per the need of the resources for the government. The government has been in greater need of resources since 2015 after the new constitution was promulgated and the federal system of government was brought into practice. As a result, the government has increasingly relied on debt to finance its needs. As a result, both domestic and external loans have grown rapidly in the last seven years. Particularly, the size of internal loans has grown more rapidly than that of external loans. For example, outstanding internal loans more than tripled to Rs987.44 billion in FY2021-22 from just Rs283.71 billion in FY2016-17. When it comes to external loans, it more than doubled to Rs1.02 trillion from Rs413.97 billion in FY2016-17, according to PDMO. Though there is little risk of foreign exchange volatility, the government has been taking domestic loans at relatively higher interest rates. So, the government paid more interest for domestic debt than external debt, which has mostly been borrowed from multilateral donors such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. According to the annual report of the PDMO, the government spent Rs37.58 billion in interest payments to domestic creditors while it spent Rs7.44 billion in paying interest to external creditors.