Despite pandemic, Nepal keeps economic growth target for next two years unchanged

The Nepal government released the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (2021-22 to 2023-24), last week where it kept the economic growth target for the next fiscal year at 6.5 percent--down from the 9.9 percent it had set in 2019, reported The Kathmandu Post.

The Medium Term Expenditure Framework is a document that projects the required expenditure of the government for the next three years to meet the growth target. The framework is prepared every year by the country’s National Planning Commission.

The target for the last two years of the five-year plan is achievable even in the present circumstance, Krishna Prasad Oli, a member of the National Planning Commission, was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post newspaper. 

“Energy sector is also promising and many government and private sector developed projects are completing which will boost the growth,” he said. “We have set an optimistic target and that is achievable if big disasters won't occur again,” he added.

However, experts argued that achieving a double-digit growth target looks impossible. “Growth is uncertain at the time of the pandemic,” said Govinda Nepal, a former member of the commission.

“Targeting nearly double-digit for the last two years of the current 15th Five-Year Plan would be hard to achieve,” said Bahadur Shreshta, former chairman of the National Planning Commission.