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Nepal is asking citizens living abroad to deposit funds in domestic banks as part of efforts to ensure the financial system has enough liquidity and to preserve foreign exchange reserves, finance minister Janardan Sharma said on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Speaking to Reuters, he denied Nepal was facing an economic crisis despite the impact of soaring commodity prices as the tourist industry, a key source of revenues, struggles to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nepal, wedged between China and India, this month imposed curbs on luxury goods imports to rein in capital outflows. Foreign exchange reserves fell over 18% to $9.6 billion as of mid-March from mid-July - enough for around six months imports.

By depositing their savings in Nepal, overseas Nepalis would continue to "maintain their link as well as benefit from 6 to 7% interest" offered by Nepali banks, Sharma said, according to Reuters.

Sharma said the economy did not face a crisis and Nepal's situation could not be compared with Sri Lanka. That South Asian country is facing its worst economic crisis in decades and anti-government protests.

In Nepal, remittances by overseas workers, which constitute nearly a quarter of the economy and are crucial for external payments, fell 3.0% to $5.3 billion between mid-July to mid-March, compared with a 5% increase in the same period a year earlier.

Earnings from tourism, which fell sharply after the start of the pandemic in 2020, are slowly picking up, but remain well below pre-COVID levels, Reuters reported.

Sharma said if 100,000 Nepali nationals living abroad deposited $10,000 each in Nepali banks it could go a long way to help Nepal overcome the current liquidity constrains.

Nepal has also decided to accept $659 million in aid from the United States and about $150 million in soft loan from the World Bank, Sharma said.

"The money to be received from the United States over five years is a (non-refundable) grant," he said, according to Reuters.

Nepal reported 12 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 2, 750 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 11 returned positive. Likewise, 739 people underwent antigen tests, of which one was tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 36  infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 375 active cases in the country.

South Korea reported 93,001 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight Saturday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 16,305,752, the health authorities said Sunday, Xinhua reported.

The daily caseload was down from 107,916 recorded in the previous day and far lower than 164,456 a week earlier, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

The health authorities believed that the daily caseload has been on the decline following the resurgence, driven by the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant and its subvariant BA.2, which peaked in mid-March.

Among the new cases, 18 were imported from overseas, lifting the total to 31,585.

The number of infected people who were in a serious condition stood at 893, down 20 from the previous day, according to Xinhua.

A total of 203 more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 21,092. The total fatality rate was 0.13 percent.

The number of people who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines was 44,526,471, or 86.8 percent of the total population, and the figure for those getting booster jabs was 33,008,629, or 64.3 percent of the population, Xinhua reported.

The national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines, is conducting a direct flight from Kathmandu to Riyadh city of Saudi Arabia from April 22. 

Nepal Airlines (NA) informed that the wide-body A 330 plane was launching the flight to Saudi Arabia.

Executive Chairperson of Nepal Airlines Yubraj Adhikari told the Rashtriya Samachar Samiti (RSS) that the conduct of direct flights to Saudi Arabia is a matter of pride for the NA. Additional destinations would be explored and service expanded gradually.

NA has got flight permits for Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah. 

There will be two Kathmandu-Riyadh-Kathmandu flights in a week. The NA would expand the flights- thrice a week after studying the situation. The NA has been expanding the service in line with the initiative and direction of the Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Prem Bahadur Ale.

The NA officials including Executive Chairperson had visited Saudi Arabia for flight permission two months back.

For now, the one-way flight costs Rs 37,000, according to NA Spokesperson Archana Khadka. Both the wide-body and narrow-body planes would be used for the flights. 

The inaugural flight would however be done by the wide-body aircraft.