Kathmandu, May 11

Exporters have asked the government to bring export promotion zone into operation by endorsing the policies as soon as possible.

The government has been forming the policy for promoting exports. However, the programme has not come into operation owing to the delay in endorsing the bills related to it by the parliament.

Talking to The Rising Nepal, Udaya Raj Pandey, president of the Garment Association Nepal (GAN), said that the government should endorse the act and policies to operate the Export Promotion Zone from the parliament immediately if the government was really serious about promoting export trade.

The file has been pending in the parliament for the past three years, he said.

Building infrastructure of the special promotion zones in Birjung and Bhairahawa have been almost completed.

He said that the government had failed to implement the package programmes even after introducing progarmmes for the export trade in its annual budget.

Although Nepal witnessed a double-digit growth in trade deficit, the government has not paid due attention towards the promotion of the export trade, he said.

Pandey said that the government should provide incentives to exports to India through banking channel. Currently, the government did not provide such incentives.

"The government should have introduced some concrete plans with relief programmes for addressing trade deficit," Pandey said.

He hoped that the export of readymade garment would continue to grow if the government could make some additional efforts for its promotion.

The export of Nepali readymade garment has increased by 9.7 per cent to Rs. 2.93 billion during the first eight months of the fiscal year 2011/12.

He said, "We have actively involved protecting the present export of garment rather than increasing it because the export of garment will not increase without political stability in the country".

The carpet industry occupied the second position during the same period. The export of carpet went up by 21.6 per cent to Rs. 4.81 billion during the last fiscal year as compared to the previous fiscal year.

He hoped that the export of garment will reach at around Rs. 5 billion during this current fiscal year.