Roundup of Nepali Economic and Business News for Feb 11-15By NepaliEconomy.com
News Archive
St. Valentine's Day demand pushed up prices of red rose stem from Rs. 20 to as high as Rs. 150 in Kathmandu. As many 200,000 pieces of roses were sold to love-birds. Talking about roses, India's Bangalore-based Karuturi Global is the world largest producer of roses producing 555 million stems a year. Rose price is not the only thing going up. The latest inflation report shows 11.8 percent increase in January.
Nepal will reduce poverty to 21 percent of the population by 2015 as per Millennium Development Goals (MDG). In 2008 poverty rate stood at 25 percent, and in 2005, 31 percent. The definition of poverty is people living under less than US$1 a day.
Commerce Minister Rajendra Mahato is heading to Washington DC to lobby for Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), which will gives preferential treatment to Nepal's exports. According to the US Census, US exports to Nepal in 2009 was US$13 million and import was just $131,000.
NEPSE's free fall has hit the pocketbooks of brokers. According to SEBON brokers' earnings has declined 28 percent to Rs. 107.34 million during 2008/09.
Nepal is benefiting from global growth. More than 203,ooo tourists visited Pokhara in 2009, up 9 percent. Pokhara only gets 25 percent of total tourists visiting Nepal. The demand for Nepalese workers in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are starting to pickup and so are their salaries. New regulations for manpower companies are in offing. While unskilled labors are going abroad, skilled jobs are coming to Nepal looking for cheap and qualified workers. Currently 25 medical transcription companies employ 400 people and has turnover of US$3 million, and Transcube International is the big dog in that sector.
Illegal diversion of incoming calls is costing telecoms companies Rs. 1.5 billion a year. According to the police, illegal rackets of VOIP have been diverting international calls through their own unauthorized channels and masking them as local calls. They benefit from rebates from foreign based operators that originate calls. Following the crackdown, Nepal Telecom (NT) is seeing a big increase in revenue. NT has been recommended to outsource is non-core activities like Base Tower Stations (BTS) and operations and maintenance.
On the IPO news, Prime life is going public at Rs. 100 million.
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