Finance Minister Dr. Similarly, Swarnim Wagle has said the government was fully committed to the development of private entrepreneurship and maintaining good governance in the country.

Speaking at the ‘Ncell Business Baahrakhari Golf Tournament and Economic Symposium’ organized by Baahrakhari Media at Gokarna Resort in Kathmandu on Saturday, he claimed that the incumbentTAG_OPEN_span_9 Council of Ministers under the leadership of Prime Minister Balendra ShahTAG_CLOSE_span_9 was setting high standards of honesty and good governance.TAG_OPEN_p_16

On the occasion, Finance Minister Wagle pledged to create investment-friendly environment by taking Nepal towards liberal economic direction through the upcoming budget.TAG_OPEN_p_15 “The government is coming up with a policy that will attract both domestic and foreign investors,” he said. The government would focus its focus on policy reforms such as protection of private property, implementation of agreements and reduction of tax burden, he said.

Warning of strict action against policy capture and institutional corruption, Minister Wagle made it clear that past mistakes would not be forgiven now.TAG_OPEN_p_14 He stressed the need to end criminalization and misuse of state resources. He, however, indicated that some flexibility would be adopted during the transition period for businessmen who were compelled to fall into the wrong cycle due to bad governance in the past.

Stating that the government was moving ahead on the basis of five pillars of priorities, he said he had taken good governance (at both macro and micro level) as the main agenda.TAG_OPEN_p_13 He made it clear that the government was emphatically implementing policies like ending collusion, digitalization in service delivery and expansion of faceless and paperless services. He said that the decision to bring the Department of Information Technology under the Office of the Prime Minister is an important step towards fulfilling the dream of Digital Nepal.

Wagle said that the improvement in basic public services such as passport distribution reflects the positive intention of the government.TAG_OPEN_p_12 The government was focused on the utilization of government resources, economic growth and employment generation, he said. Stating that it was the responsibility of the government to build credibility before the people after an overwhelming majority in the budget, Wagle said that the upcoming budget was being prepared as per the objective.

Stating that there are many lessons to learn from India in the context of Nepal’s economic development, he said that the government would move ahead to implement the suggestions presented by the main speaker of the Baahrakhari Economic Symposium ({ Amitabh Kant {}.TAG_OPEN_p_11 He made it clear that the government was actively working at both policy and practice level to repeal the irrelevant acts and create investment-friendly environment. According to the report of the High-Level Economic Advisory Commission led by former finance minister andTAG_OPEN_span_7 economistTAG_CLOSE_span_7 Rameshwor Khanal, the government is preparing to remove the old and weak laws.

Stating that the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was moving ahead with the objective of resolving the structural problems entangled in the state mechanism, he expressed the belief that concrete steps would be taken for reform.TAG_OPEN_p_10 “The president of the RSP has said that the opportunity should be utilized. We are continuously working to end the bad situation,” he said.