After Sri Lanka, Nepal is staring at an economic crisis. Alarm bells are particularly ringing over a 16.2 percent fall in Nepal’s forex reserves. The biggest concern in Nepal is about the country’s huge import bill. Experts pointed out that this was the first time in 2017-18 that Nepal’s import bill crossed the one trillion rupees limit.
In the current financial year, only in the first six months, Nepal has to pay the same amount as import bill. The import of more consumer goods into Nepal has increased. The stagnation of tourism during the corona epidemic is also one of the reasons behind Nepal’s economic crisis.
A Sri Lankan bank official on Friday said that Nepal is running low on foreign currency reserves needed to import medicines, oil, products, cars and a range of other items and will run out in seven months if things don’t improve. Expressing concerns about the sustainability of foreign exchange reserves, he said that the central bank has increased interest rates, hoping that it will discourage people from buying imports and help extend the foreign reserves.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka, which is facing severe economic crisis, announced a fuel ban on Friday. Now, Sri Lankan citizens will be able to refuel only 1,000 in two-wheelers, 1,500 in three-wheelers and up to five thousand in four-wheelers at a time.
