Pandey who is in Washington to attend the annual joint board of governors meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) apprised the multilateral and bilateral donors of the country´s peace process and the aftershocks of the global financial crisis that it continues to feel.[break]
"Our exports have decreased, remittance flow has reduced and trend of tourists´ arrivals has decreased. These have severely affected the overall growth of economy and country´s balance of payment," said Pandey.
While referring to such adverse impact of the crisis, he urged the international community to put in place a regular surveillance mechanism to monitor global economic and financial fluctuations and its impact on the economies in different regions.
He even called for concerted and coordinated efforts to ensure greater market access for small and vulnerable economies like Nepal in the development markets in order to overcome the economic hardships being experienced by them.
Unfortunate for the minister, he had no new message to convey to the global leaders and development partners on matters related to the peace process.
"Our challenges continue to remain the same. We have not been able to achieve success on those issues," said Pandey, while addressing the joint annual meetings of the IMF and WB attended by finance ministers from more than 180 countries.
Nonetheless, he mentioned that Nepal hopes to complete consitution-drafting within the extended deadline of May 28, 2011. "We plan to complete the reintegration of Maoists combatants with the next four months as well," he said.
Pandey expressed the government´s commitment to end the political transition of the country as early as possible. But in the process, he noted, Nepal would continue to require more support from the international community to complete relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and reintegration.
The finance minister also highlighted key economic challenges facing the government like increasing investment in priority sectors, creating investment-friendly environment, moderating the existing high inflation and reversing declining productivity and production of food grains.
He also stressed the need for enhancing the level of income by generating adequate and decent employment opportunities and attaining inclusive and equitable transfer of returns of development in all geographic regions, communities and groups.
Although the long-running energy crisis featured relatively lower in his list of challenge, Minister Pandey admitted that ensuring dependable energy supply, among others, by improving the public services was a daunting challenge, which Nepal must overcome at any cost.
In this context, Pandey added that the Bank´s lending instruments to developing countries need to be more focused on infrastructure development such as hydropower and road construction projects.
"Nepal needs huge investment in infrastructure development in order to create employment opportunities for the people," he said and suggested that the WB consider the country-specific contexts while making IDA-allocation decisions, mainly in cases of countries either in conflict or just emerging from conflict.
Pandey also expressed the government´s commitment to continue reforms in improving governance through improved public financial management, public administration and service delivery to the people.
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