Kathmandu, November 4
The government has claimed that it received a commitment of foreign direct investment worth Rs 10.76 billion in the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
A spokesperson and director at the Department of Industry, Binod Khadka, says the department approved the foreign investment worth the amount from mid-July to mid-October this year.
The committed amount is more than two times the amount that the foreign investors made commitments for in the same period of time last year. From mid-July to mid-October 2018, Nepal had received a commitment worth Rs 4.83 billion.
The department informs that the tourism industry received the highest amount of investment commitments. The investors have pledged to invest Rs 5.77 billion in the industry, mostly in hotels, according to the department. Likewise, other top sectors likely to receive significant amounts of foreign investment are services (Rs 2.73 billion), information and technology (Rs 1.3 billion), productive industries (Rs 900 million), agricultural and forest-based industries (Rs 50 million).
In total, the department has approved 77 projects with foreign direct investment in this period.
The department chief Jeevan Prakash Sitaula claims foreign investors are excited to invest in Nepal, and it is a hint that the country’s investment environment has significantly improved owing to policy reforms. “We are trying to do even better,” he says.
Nepal had received the FDI worth Rs 23.69 billion in the last fiscal year.
