Kathmandu: The ‘International Conference on Financing for Nepal’ 2023 was organised jointly by the Investment Board Nepal (IBN) and Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Limited (SCBNL) in collaboration with the Society of Economic Journalists – Nepal (SEJON).

Addressing the opening session of the conference, Right Honourable Prime Minister and Chairman of the Investment Board Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” shared that this conference will present the latest financial tools and measures needed for economic and social development and also reassured government action on legal, institutional and procedural reforms to promote, facilitate and encourage private investment.

The PM also highlighted that the conference is timely as recommendations from the conference contributed by national and
international participants can be included in the upcoming annual fiscal budget and monetary policies.

The conference was attended by senior secretaries, government officials, diplomats, senior representatives from Development Partners, private sector, banks and financial institutions, experts, researchers and academicians.

Finance Minister Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat; Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Investment Board Nepal Sushil Bhatta; Registrar of Kathmandu University Prof. Dr. Achyut Wagle; CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Limited, Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar; Senior Sustainability Advisor of Standard Chartered Bank UK, Dr. John Murton; and, the President of SEJON, Janardan Baral addressed the opening sessions.

Finance Minister Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat emphasised on the importance of new financing tools that are needed for mobilising resources in addition to investments and held the opinion that we
should not only be ‘repackaging’ the resources available in the existing structures and arrangements, but also look at the availability of additional resources.

Additionally, he focussed on the importance of building a positive macroeconomic story for Nepal, when there are important aspects including no defaults for the country, healthy debt profile, a demographic dividend and digital penetration.

Sushil Bhatta, CEO, Investment Board Nepal (IBN), held the view that the returns of projects will increase with the mix of resources obtained from various financial sources and investors can also get compensated appropriately to opportunity costs.

Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar, CEO, Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Limited (SCBNL) said, “Sustainable finance can help Nepal in leveraging its potential for renewable energy by providing the necessary funding and support to help us transition towards a more sustainable and low-carbon future. We must speed up sustainable investments and increase their scope in Nepal.”

Likewise, Professor Dr. Achyut Wagle stressed on the search and use of new financing tools for Nepal to achieve its ambitious development goals as public finance has its own limitations.

In the conference, technical sessions were conducted on macroeconomics of investment, legal, institutional and implementation arrangements related to investment, tools and scope of financing in Nepal along with resource mobilisation and disruption prevention.

The conference was concluded by Maha Prasad Adhikari, Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank. Speaking on the occasion, the Governor expressed the opinion that this conference will be useful for formulating the fiscal budget and monetary policy of Nepal.