PARTY OF JAJATATIS BEING LAUNCHED THURSDAY Kathmandu, 22 Nov.: The delayed formation of a party to be launched by defectors opposition UML and NC espousing federation with identity gets underway Thursday. Former Vice-chairman of UML Ashok Rai is the chairman.of “Sanghiya Samajbado Party” or Federal Socialist Party while Rajendra Shrestha, also a UML leader from the Valley, is general secretary. The party will have am ad hoc committee of nearly 100 members. NC’s Durgamani Dewan is one vice-chairman as other vice-chairman are yet to be moninted amid differences. nnnn HIMALAYAN SHERPA CLUB PLAYS APF IN FOOTBALL LEAGUE Kathmandu, 22 Nov.: Himalayan Sherpa Club plays Armed Police Force (APF) in the Martyrs Memorial A Division Football League Thursday. RCT meets Baudha Football CLun in the second match. Nnnn DEPOSIT FLIGHT AMID FALLING DECLINING INTEREST RATES ratesREPUBLICA Kathmandu, 22 Nov : Standard Chartered (StanChart) Bank Nepal has emerged as the biggest victim of the ongoing trend of cutting deposit rates, with the financial institution reporting flight of billions of rupees from its deposit accounts,Republica reports. Lately, many banks have started slashing deposit rates to stem negative impacts of lethal combination of excess liquidity and subdued lending market. Although most of the leading banks have so far been able to retain much of their deposits, StanChart saw its deposit base shrink to Rs 34.99 billion by the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal year, as against Rs 40.75 billion recorded in the same period last fiscal year. Of the amount, Rs 3.28 billion had disappeared from local currency deposit accounts and Rs 2.43 billion from foreign currency deposit accounts, unaudited figures published by the bank shows. Together, this marked a drop of 14 percent in deposits. Although the bank had started witnessing deposit flight from late last fiscal year, the situation was expected to improve this fiscal year. But in the three months to October 16 alone, the bank lost Rs 971.94 million in deposits. This was largely because of drop in fixed and call deposits, which, in turn, was triggered by reduction of interest rates on those products, the bank said. Lately, StanChart has brought down fixed deposit rates to around three percent from as high as nine to ten percent a year ago, according to Diwakar Poudel, head of corporate affairs at the bank. “Similar reductions were made to call deposit rates,” he said. “Although we knew the move to reduce interest rates would ward off depositors we made a conscious move in this regard to diversify our deposit product range.” Like most of the banks and financial institutions, StanChart had raised interest rates on deposit products during liquidity crisis to attract customers. But as the situation started improving since July last year many institutions started slashing deposit rates. “The downward revision of rates triggered migration of depositors, who had parked money in fixed and call accounts,” Poudel said. “This caused the bank to lose around Rs 9 billion in deposits.” The bank has, however, clarified the latest shrinkage in deposits should not mean customers have lost interest in the bank, as, according to Poudel, Rs 4 billion was added to savings deposit accounts in the last one year period. Savings deposits contributed to around 50 percent of the total deposits collected by StanChart in last fiscal year, Nepal Rastra Bank report shows. Although latest central bank figures are not available, Poudel said the figure has now gone up to around 70 percent. “If customers were really unhappy with us, then there would have been reduction in savings deposits as well,” he said, pointing to addition of Rs 4 billion in the last one year period. Nnnn DRASTIC FALL IN FOREIGN JOB SEEKERS Kathmandu, 22 Nov : The number of job-seekers who left for overseas destinations has dropped by whopping 20.63 percent during the first four months of the current fiscal year 2012/13 compared to the number recorded during the same period last year, Republica reports. Manpower agents attributed the significant decline in the number of overseas migrants to stricter policy by the government to give work permit, increasing number of workers leaving unrecorded via India and cessation of fresh approval by the Saudi government for new workers. Data compiled by the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) showed a total of 124,394 job aspirants flew to international destination during the period between mid-July to mid- November. The number was 156,730 during the corresponding period last fiscal year. “The DoFE has been imposing stricter rules to get foreign job permits for last few months which has discouraged us to send more workers to foreign destination leading to exodus of overseas job seekers via India through clandestine channels,” Kumud Khanal, first vice-president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) told Republica on Wednesday. Khanal also said suspension to release new demand approvals for jobs by the Saudi government for the last couple of months also dragged down the number of job seekers compared to last year´s figure. “Workers heading for Saudi are those whose demands were approved before the suspension was put in place,” he added. Out of the total job seekers who headed for international labor markets, 115,174 and 9,220 had managed to get jobs through institutional and individual channel respectively. Similarly, total number of workers who departed for a foreign job during the review period includes 117,287 male and 7,107 female. During the review period, Malaysia, the most popular destination, received a total of 49,254 and Saudi Arabia-the largest destination, hosted 27,136. Similarly, the number of migrants leaving for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stood at 21,225 and 15,768 respectively during the period. The data also showed that the total number of Nepali youths seeking foreign jobs reached 25,617 during mid-October to mid-November, down from 47,176 recorded during the same months last year. During the month Malaysia and the UAE received 8,619 and 4,687 job aspirants respectively. Similarly, Qatar and Saudi Arabia provided employment to 4,242 and 4,252 Nepalis respectively during the period. Nnnn