From Evidence to Policy : Supporting Nepal’s Trade Integration Strategy
In the last decades, slow growth and job creation have encouraged emigration, further dampening domestic sources of growth in Nepal. Tepid growth over the past decade, the slowest in the region, has resulted in few jobs being created, leading to mo...
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| Language: | English en_US |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26563867/evidence-policy-supporting-nepal’s-trade-integration-strategy http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24979 |
| Summary: | In the last decades, slow growth and job
creation have encouraged emigration, further dampening
domestic sources of growth in Nepal. Tepid growth over the
past decade, the slowest in the region, has resulted in few
jobs being created, leading to more Nepalese workers seeking
opportunities abroad. Their remittances have helped reduce
poverty in the country and finance increasingly large trade
deficits. Like other inflows of foreign exchange,
remittances have led to an appreciation of the real exchange
rate. This has adversely affected export competitiveness and
has had no positive effects on productivity (unlike foreign
direct investment). This report attempts to determine the
extent to which these obstacles can be alleviated by policy
decisions, as well as exactly which policy decisions should
be prioritized. The policy notes included in this report aim
at supporting the National Trade and Integration Strategy
(NTIS) through an evidence-based approach. To do so, these
notes combine the following elements: (i) existing analysis
on Nepal’s competitiveness from different angles (including
existing competitiveness assessments on transport, access to
finance, the tourism sector, previous trade competitiveness
reports, and so forth); (ii) international experience from
comparator countries on good practices for trade policy
reforms; (iii) new analysis for Nepal, applying cutting-edge
methods on a wide set of databases; and (iv) field-level
interviews with the private sector, and consultations with
donors and the Government of Nepal. |
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