Economic growth of Nepal and corona-virus

The economic growth of the country is likely to be negative in the current fiscal year. It has been projected that the economic growth of the country would shrink due to the coronavirus pandemic initially. The Central Bureau of Statistics had projected 2.3 per cent growth in the national economy however the Bureau has concluded that the growth will further drop amid the pandemic.

Six weeks ago the Central Bureau of Statistics had projected the country's economic growth at 2.3 per cent due to the ongoing nationwide lockdown. The Bureau at the time had presumed that the country's economic activities would resume by 14th of May even as it is not clear as to when the nationwide lockdown could be completely lifted.

The government in the meantime has changed the modality of the ongoing lockdown to revamp the country's lagging economy. The Bureau has concluded that major sectors including industries, trade, hydropower, construction and education would further plunge than projected earlier due to the decrease in consumption, electricity worth 10 million rupees is being wasted daily. It is unlikely to achieve 28.75 per cent growth in the hydropower sector and 4.88 per cent growth in the education sector as estimated earlier.

The World Bank has estimated that the world's economy would be negative by 5.2 per cent due to the coronavirus pandemic. The bank while unfeeling its report on Tuesday had mentioned that the size of Nepal's economy will not decrease however, the economic growth will limit to 1.8 per cent while Nepal had the experienced economic growth of almost 7 per cent in the last three years.

Nepal had registered a mere 0.8% economic growth in 2015 due to the April earthquake that year although the government has decided to ease the restriction to revive the country's economy. There is no option left for the government to halt the ongoing string in the country's economic growth.