Urja Khabar
Kathmandu; Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal inaugurated the third Nepal Investment Summit 2024, and announced to investors measures taken by the country to make the environment more conducive for doing business on Sunday.
“We are committed to carry out continuous reforms to facilitate investors, industrialists, innovators, and ease the doing business environment,” said Dahal, "the Government has recently amended 8 different laws relating to business and investment".
At a separate side event, the Prime Minister Dahal – also the Chair of the Nepal Investment Board (IBN) – attended a meeting with business leaders from 22 countries to assure them of Nepal’s readiness to support investors interested in undertaking projects in Nepal.
According to IBN the summit showcased 154 projects in various stages of preparation, including 19 that were being readied for soliciting Expressions of Interest from potential investors.
Earlier, the Minister for Finance, Barsha Man Pun welcomed the participants at the summit, which he said was an important platform for the Government to reach out to potential investors and for investors to provide feedback.
He added that it was also a platform where potential foreign investors could network and interact with Nepali officials and policymakers and their counterparts in the private sector to obtain information required for assessing Nepal’s readiness for doing business.
The inaugural session also included addresses by dignitaries including former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary General of the UN Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Ben Mellor, Regional Director, of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).
Ambassadors of India to Nepal Naveen Srivastava, of the United States of America Dean R. Thompson, and from the People’s Republic of China Chen Song also addressed the session.
The other speakers were Martin Raiser, Vice President (South Asia), the World Bank; Yingming Yang, Vice President, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and Rajat Mishra, Acting Vice President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Similarly, the president of SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Md. Jasmin Uddin; Senior Vice President of the United States Chamber of Commerce Atul Keshap, and the leader of Delegation from Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Supratim Dutta also addressed the session.
Chandra Prasad Dhakal, Federation of Nepali Chambers of Commerce (FNCCI), and Industries, Rajesh Kumar Agarwal, Confederation of Nepali Industries (CNI), and Kamalesh Kumar Agarwal, of the Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) – the co-organizers of the summit – also delivered their remarks.
Similarly, two other speakers at the session were Sushil Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director of the Satluj Jal Vidyut Neegam (SJVN) which has been building a large hydro project in Nepal, and Sushil Bhatta, Chief Executive Officer of the IBN.
Of two plenary sessions held on Sunday, one explored the investment opportunities in Nepal and the other dealt with success stories of investments done in the country.
During the inaugural session two Memoranda of Understandings (MOU) were signed on the first day of the two-day summit. One MOU was signed between the BLC Group Nepal and Yotta Data Services, Pvt. Ltd. India, and another, between the FNCCI and National Chamber of Commerce, Malaysia.
Over 2163 participants attended the summit from 60 countries, including representatives from government agencies, the private sector, and Nepal’s development partners. Among these participants, there were 680 international delegates, 186 from India, and 240 from China.
