March 28: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has projected Nepal’s GDP to rest between 5.2 to 6.2 percent in 2017. Similarly, the bank projected the inflation of the country to range between 6-6.5 percent in 2017.  The bank shared the fact based on the Macroeconomic Update of Nepal as of March 2017 that analyzes Nepal’s mid-year performance in real, fiscal, monetary and external sectors for 2017.

According to the update, robust revenue generation but poor capital expenditure of the government has resulted in a fiscal surplus as of the first half of FY2017. Similarly, the widening trade deficit and a slowdown in remittance inflows have resulted in a current account deficit as of mid-year of FY2017.

Moreover, the Issue Focus section reviews key regulatory and operational aspects for businesses in the country, especially foreign investment. As per the bank, Nepal lags behind many peer countries in terms of attracting foreign investment. To turn around the situation, the bank suggested that Nepal should introduce further reforms to address the de facto practices and procedures governing foreign investment and introduce policy reforms to improve the operational environment for domestic and foreign firms.