Weekly Economic Update: February 26, 2021 — March 04, 2021
2 min readMar 4, 2021
- Nepal has begun the process of registering five species of large cardamom grown in the country, which will help Nepal claim their ownership and patent them in the international market.
- Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has doubled the upper limit for cash transactions through digital payment channels. The transaction settlement limit through a mobile banking system has been revised to NPR 200,000 daily from the existing NPR 100,000. Similarly, the internet banking ceilings for merchant payment and account transfers have also been raised to NPR 2 million per day from NPR 1 million.
- The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has provided a conditional grant of NPR 1.08 billion to 113 local governments to fund the health service centers that are under-construction.
- Enforcing the Nepal QR Code Standardization Framework and Guidelines, NRB has barred QR code payment service providers from charging a fee from the customers under any headings. It allows payment service operators (PSOs) and financial institutions to take service charge from the merchants in the form of the merchant discount rate (MDR).
- A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) and the Department of Industry (DoI) to conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the manufacturing industries operating in Nepal, with the aim of facilitating policy formulation in the industrial sector.
- World Bank (WB) will provide a fast-track assistance of NPR 2.92 billion to Nepal to purchase coronavirus vaccine and to carry out related works.
