NEPALI TEAM LEAVES SATURDAY TO PARTICIPATE IN MEET WITH EU Kathmandu, 14 July: A four-member team led by Foreign Secretary Durga Prasad Bhattarai leaves for Brussels Saturday. The team will participate in the 8th session of the EU Nepal Joint Commission meet beginning 19 July in the Belgian capital. Meetings are held once every two years. Economic assistance are among issues that will be discussed. nnnn MEDIA GOOGLE “A South Asian Economic Union is a distant dream, but even an expanded set of economic connections will not only transform the economies but will be a force for political stability.” (Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai, The Kathmandu Post, 14 July) NEPAL RECORDS 4.65% ECONOMIC GROWTH Kathmandu, 14 July: The healthy growth in the agriculture and service sectors has pushed the country’s economic growth to 4.6 percent in the current fiscal year. The growth was 3.5 percent last fiscal year. The Economic Survey to be made public on Saturday shows economic growth in the fiscal year 2011-12 is, however, below the government target of 5 Percent, Mukul Humagain reports in The Kathmandu Post.. The growth in the agriculture and service sectors has made a positive impact on the overall economy, said a top official at the Finance Ministry. According to ministry sources, the survey has projected the agriculture sector’s growth at around 4.8 percent, thanks to a record food grain production. Nepal is expected to record an all-time high production of food grain of over 9.457 million tonnes in the fiscal 2011-12. With this, the contribution of the sector to the country’s GDP will increase to 35 percent this year, from the 33 percent last fiscal year. The agriculture sector’s growth in the last fiscal year was 4.1 percent. Likewise, the service sector that contributes 55 percent to the GDP is projected to grow by around 6 percent. However, the expansion of the manufacturing sector has been disappointing this year also. “The growth of the manufacturing sector would be above one percent,” said a source. Over the last five years, the growth of the industrial sector has remained at just 0.3 percent. The statistics show that inflation rose moderately, compared to last year, although it is higher than what the government had targeted. The ministry sources said the survey projects inflation to remain at 8 percent, which is one percent higher than what the government had targeted. The government, in the current fiscal year’s budget, has targeted to control inflation at 7 percent. “The rise in the prices of petroleum products and bandas and strikes in April/May pushed the inflation higher,” said the source. The average inflation last year was 9.6 percent Two years ago, Nepal Rastra Bank reduced the weight of food items while measuring the inflation, which lowered the inflation level despite heavy rise in prices of food items. Of late, the prices of food and vegetables have sky-rocketed.Balance of payment and current account has, however, reached a record high. The current account surplus has crossed the Rs 60 billion mark. The current account surplus soared due to increased remittance and tourism income. Although the country has failed to attract substantial foreign direct investment, the rise in remittance and remittance income helped the country post a balance of payment (BoP) surplus of a record Rs 112 billion, according to the survey. The capital expenditure has surged in the latest two months of the fiscal year, although its growth was slow until the first 10 months of the fiscal year. According to the Finance Ministry, capital expenditure stands at 90 percent, although there had been just 30 percent expenditure as of the first 10 months of this year. It means, the ministry had predicted that the total expenditure this year would be Rs 370 billion. Nnnn SETI RIVER WASHES AWAY POKHARA DRINKING WATER PIPELINE Kathmandu, 14 July: The flooded Seti river on Friday afternoon swept away a major pipeline that supplies drinking water to Pokhara, Ishwor Neupane, Lal Prasad Sharma write in The Kathmandu Post from Pokhara. Ishwor Prasad of the Nepal Drinking Water Corporation (NDWC) said water distribution from the Mardi river source has been discontinued as the flood swept away around 24 metres of the pipeline. The tourist hub was reeling under a shortage of drinking water after a flood in the Seti river on May 5 damaged another major pipeline that supplied 15 million litres of water to Pokhara daily. The pipeline from Mardi River distributed 16 million litres of water daily. According to the NDWC, Pokhara requires 41 million litres of water a day. Discontinuation in the supply from the two major pipelines means a shortage of 31 million litres per day. NDWC can now supply only 9 million litres a day from other sources, which is very little to satiate the thirst of nearly 400,000 people of Pokhara. “The flood is still raging and we cannot undertake the repair work right away,” said Prasad. An emergency meeting of the Natural Disaster Rescue Committee was called in the wake of the incident. The meeting decided to mobilise 10 water tankers to supply water throughout the town. Nepal Army has also pledged assistance in supplying drinking water and in repairing the damaged pipelines. Meanwhile, high-level officials of the NDWC central office in Kathmandu left for Pokhara to take stock of the situation. The swollen Seti river has deluged the bridge linking Dhorphirdi and Dulegauda of Tanahu. Transport service has been cut off in the wake. Many vehicles headed for Dhorphirdi, Raipur and Syangja district have been stranded at Dulegauda . Even though the Seti witnessed an exponential rise in its water level, police said there were no immediate threats to human settlements. nnnn