Govt opens rice export with quantitative restriction

The government has lifted a four-year-old ban on rice export paving the way for the country to export of upto 10,000 tons of rice from the two customs points - Rasuwa and Tatopani - to China.
Initially, Ministry of Commerce and Supplies and Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD) had proposed that export be opened for 50,000 tons of rice from those customs for this year. But the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) lowered the export ceiling when it issued the final decision.
“Traders can now export 5,000 tons of rice from each of the two customs points,” commerce secretary Lal Mani Joshi told Republica on Tuesday. “Prime Minister Babu Ram Bhattarai declined to approve export of 50 thousand tons of rice, citing the rising price of food in the domestic market.”
Officials said the amount of export opened was too little for farmers to enjoy better price for their produces.
According to MoAD, the country enjoyed food surplus of 443,000 tons in the fiscal year 2010/11. It has forecast a food surplus of about 800,000 tons for previous fiscal year 2011/12, of which 300,000 tons will comprise rice.
The preliminary estimation of crops production of MoAD shows that paddy reached 9.45 million tons in the fiscal year 2011/12, up 9.8 percent compared to the previous fiscal year and 21.8 percent compared to the fiscal year 2009/10.
“It might lead to unintended consequences,” Joshi said. “Opening export of rice in a large quantity might result in shortage of food in the domestic market.” The government´s decision to lift up the ban has been published in the gazette this week.
The Department of Commerce and Supply Management (DoCSM) is preparing to provide license to the traders. “Traders have to apply to get the license for export of rice and the DoCSM will make a decision to provide license with quota restriction for them to export,” Joshi said.

NBF fails to meet the target: Govt officials

After almost two years of formation of Nepal Business Forum (NBF) - a common platform to conduct public-private dialogues to remove barriers for entrepreneurship - experts and government officials have questioned its ability to coordinate, orient and institutionalize itself to achieve the targeted goals.
“The NBF has been inefficient to coordinate between private and public sector, failed to orient different stakeholders and most importantly it has not yet institutionalized even after two years of full-fledged work,” Mahendra Gurung, joint secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) said. “This is unfortunate.”
The NBF was formed in May 2010 through an executive order of the government aiming to harmonize the business environment in the country with the help of International Finance Cooperation (IFC). Speaking in a program organized by the NBF secretariat in Kathmandu on Tuesday Gurung said, “There are multiple reasons for the NBF´s slackness, one of the major reasons is that the private sector has not owned this platform.”
Briefing the government´s initiation to launch the e-licensing portal within a couple of weeks to ease the process of getting license for businesses, Gurung said the private sector should be more competitive and sound in its work. “Definitely private sector has the right to knock the government´s door for different facilities, but they should come up with strong basis and measured arguments,” he said.
Anil Kumar Thakur, joint secretary at the Ministry of Industry (MoI) said that the growth rate of industrial sector was declining continuously despite various efforts. “We have failed to achieve the goals that we had set while forming the NBF,” he said in his inaugural speech in the program.
Meanwhile the NBF secretariat has claimed that there have been multiple achievements in last two years. “Tax payment days have been reduced from 34 to 22 days which has resulted in over USD 4.38 million cost saving for the private sector, the export of Pashmina has increased by 50 percent after registration of Pashmina trademark in 41 countries, elimination of provision of Rs 100 million authorized capital for issuance per MW hydro power survey license are major achievements,” Gopal Prasad Tiwari, coordinator of the NBF shared at the program.
Similarly, he presented achievements such as allocation of Rs 10 million to establish a Women Entrepreneurship Development Fund, harmonization of customs hours between India and China to facilitate trade related procedures and transactions, elimination of illegal tax collection in Biratnagar resulting easy movement of trucks and public buses.
Interestingly, private sector representatives didn´t agree with the achievements shared by the NBF coordinator. “I wonder where these achievements were made,” Manish Agrawal, an official from the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) said.
However, Surendra Bir Malakar, former president of Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) blamed the political situation.