March 20: Confederation of Banks and Financial Institutions Nepal (CBFIN) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are joining hands to work together for a self-reliant economy.

The delegates of ADB on a visit to Nepal have agreed to work in collaboration with the CBFIN to strengthen the financial sector, provide easy access to credit to the local industries and productive sector and to promote the domestic economy through infrastructure development.

In a meeting organized by CBFIN on Friday, Manmohan Prakash, Deputy Director General of Manila-based ADB for overseeing South Asian affairs, announced that they would be working with focus on production based on new and locally-available raw materials. He stated that the country's own resources should make the economy sustainable by providing credit, global market opportunities, exploration and new technologies.

“The small and medium entrepreneurs can run their business smoothly only if they are provided the loans without collateral. Such industries need to be supported with access to finance, market and infrastructure as well as skills as MSMEs create huge employment opportunities,” said Prakash.

Prakash also said that MSMEs could survive only if they were given loans without collateral with reasonable interest rates to operate their business effectively without any procedural hurdles. During the meeting, CBFIN Chairman Pawan Kumar Golyan requested ADB to provide more than Rs 1 billion soft loan to Nepal taking the current financial crisis into account.

Golyan expressed his opinion saying that if ADB agrees to provide the soft loan, the problem of liquidity crisis would get resolved as well as the banks and financial sectors could provide loans to the targeted sectors.