Within last 5 months,the covid -19 has gone global and turned into a ’ pendemic’ after affecting around 200 countries.World economy is facing ‘severe’ health as well as economic damage . Nepal is also starting to suffer from the pendemic’ and the whole country is under lockdown,which is adversely affecting the Neplease economy.
As per the analysis by the Asian Development Bank the outbreak of the deadly disease will hit almost every sector of Neplease economy,cutting up to 0.13 Percent off the gross domestic product and rendering up to 15,880 people jobless.
It has impact on number of sectors like tourism,trade and production linkage,Supply chain,Retail,aviation, Hospitality,Restaurants and Agriculture.
The outbreak has affected people well as private and public sector.Banks are suffering from loss of investment,Industries are suffering from lack of raw materials.
Increase rate of the virus has affect the remittance inflow and government revenue collection.In these 3 months the remittance source has contributed less then 1%in country’s economy.The drastic downfall in the import from China created scarcity of goods in market which affect wholesale and retail sector.looking ahead there is a high risk of general inflation.many farmers and low income group people seems to fall back into poverty.
By observing this sinario here I pointed out some of the measures to nullify Economic fall-out after COVID-19
1)Central bank should throw money towards banking sector to make sure business should bounce up.
2) Government should focus on issuing Treasury bill for faster boosting of economy and Treasury bond, corporate bond for long term economic prosperity and encourage private sector, foreigners& NRNs for investing
in government security.
3) Government should decrease the rate of interest for investment and offer profitable scheme to neplease entrepreneur to make more investment inside the country by utilizing local raw materials.but the Nepali market is highly influenced by foreign product so, government should make barriers for imput of some products like ( shoes,bags, plastic equipment,fruits , vegetables)from abroad and replace the market of foreign product by Neplease product.
4)Nepal should be establish as a medical tourism destination.Although our hospitals lacks infrastructure and equipment but the quality of doctors is high and the price of treatment is far more cheaper in comparing to other countries so, Visiting Nepal for pleasure as well as medical reasons should be an attraction.
5) Government should rebate to hotels so that they can run some how normally.Another focus is to be given to retain foreign tourists in Nepal to continue 'Visit Nepal’by promoting ( visit sagarmatha …,visit lumbini… ).we can attract them by charging less rent on refrestional activities along with the guarantee of safety.
6) Government should provide subsides to farmers and collapse their agricultural loan installment and interest for next some months after lockdown to uplift the poor economic status.as well as maintaining easy excess to market and lunching insurance policies.
7)As we know that ,future of economic prosperity is depend upon information technology,we should encourage all the young and talented youth to explore their talent and make new innovation inside the country by providing them a good placement in government job with high respect and salary.
8)most of the foreign companies are looking to outsource programming, research and labour -intensive work from developing countries Nepal has a great opportunity of outsourcing since here are the large number of students interested in computer engineering.
9)Nepal government should quickly lunch different capital and pilot project which create large number of employment opportunities to all the people including those who loose their job in abroad after covid 19 outbreak.
10)local bodies should issue relief package to low income group people and increase wage rate of employees.
These methods can be applied to bounce up our economic fallout after lockdown.lets take COVID-19 as an opportunity to become self dependent and uplift our economic status.
Credit: Kritana(baini)