PM, RPP-NEPAL CHAIRMAN KAMAL THAPA DISCUSSIONS Kathmandu, 1 July: : In a bid to forge national consensus to navigate present political transition, Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai has intensified meetings and discussion with various political leaders, RSS reports. In this connection, Prime Minister Dr Bhattarai discussed contemporary politics with Chairman of Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, Kamal Thapa on Sunday. At the meeting held at the Prime Minister's residence, Baluwatar today, the RPP-N Chairman Thapa urged the Prime Minister to first work to remove the legal obstacles and then prepare for the constituent assembly elections instead of prolonging the transition. Talking to media persons following the meeting, he said the Prime Minister took his suggestion to step down and hand over power to independent experts to hold election positively. Moreover, he said the Prime Minister was ready to step down for the elections. I agreed with Dr Bhattarai's view that restoration of the constituent assembly, which failed to bring a constitution in four years, was impossible, leader Thapa added. nnnn TOURIST JUNE ARIVALS UP 6.2 PERCENT Kathmandu, 1 July: The number of foreign tourists arriving Nepal through aerial route has reached 42, 238 with an increase by 16.2 per cent in June, 2012 compared to the same month last year, RSS reports.. A total of 294,019 tourists entered the country during the period from January to June this year and the number is an increase by 19.8 per cent, said Nepal Tourism Board while quoting the Immigration Office at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA). Arrivals from Asia other than South Asian countries have witnessed a positive growth by 45 per cent during the six months while tourists' arrivals from China and India rose by 12.7 and 61 per cent, respectively. Likewise, arrivals from Pakistan soared by 35 per cent whereas number of tourists from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka decreased by 3.7 and 14.7 per cent, respectively. Similarly, an overall growth of 3.7 per cent has been observed from European countries in this period. Arrivals from European countries including the UK, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Russia have increased whereas number of arrivals from Germany, Spain and Italy is found to have declined. The rise in the arrival of tourists is attributed to wide publicity of tourism heritages of the country during Nepal Tourism Year-2011, claim tourism entrepreneurs. Likewise, the number of people going abroad through the TIA in June is 51,397. nnnn FINANCE MINISTER PUN PREPARING TO ANNOUNCE FULL BUDGET Kathmandu, 1 July: : Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun has said that preparation to unveil a full-fledged budget is on full swing, RSS reports.. The full-fledged budget would be presented by drawing up minimum common economic agendas based on a consensus among all the political parties, Minister Pun added. At a pre-budget discussion with the office-bearers and members of the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) here on Sunday, he expressed the belief that the government would come up with a full-size budget. 'Preparation to bring full budget by incorporating aspirations of all political parties is in the final stage', he said. Foreign investment could be drawn well if consensus among major political parties was forged on economic agenda, he said, expressing the hope that the government would make investment-friendly environment through the full-size budget. Making it clear that the regular programmes would not be changed in this year's budget, he said, 'Budget would give continuity to hydropower, tourism, infrastructure and agriculture sector'. Finance Secretary Krishna Hari Baskota pledged to incorporate positive recommendations provided by the CNI office-bearers in the upcoming budget and added that the budget would come in favor of industrialists and entrepreneurs paying tax to the state regularly. Clarifying that the government has not collected tax unnecessarily, he said, 'The dependency of the State will increase if tax amounting 20 per cent of the Gross Domestic Production (GDP) was not collected'. Participating industrialists urged the government to bring full-scale budget on time, stressing that consensus on economic agendas should be made with political parties to draw foreign investment. CNI Acting Chair Narendra Kumar Basnyat said it is the foremost need to increase the limit of development budget to speed up economic growth. nnnn