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Daayitwa’s third policy dialogue recommends ways to leverage diaspora investment

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KATHMANDU: Daayitwa on Tuesday organised the third policy dialogue of ECON Talks Series on leveraging diaspora investment for economic development of Nepal. The dialogue held in collaboration with National Democratic Institute (NDI) featured Former Minister and member of the House of Representatives Gagan Kumar Thapa as the policy guardian. A panel comprising Bam Bahadru Mishra, Deputy Governor, Nepal Rastra Bank; Yam Kumari Khatiwada, Former Secretary of Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies; Upendra Mahato, Founding President, Non-Resident Nepali Association; and Anup Raj Upreti, Managing Partner, Pioneer Law Associates examined the inclusive and innovative economic policies focusing on the opportunities to leverage diaspora direct investment (DDI) along with other foreign direct investment (FDI) to make Nepal independent by improving domestic production and export. The hurdles and challenges experienced by foreign investors including Nepali diaspora, benefits and drawbacks of FDI in Nepal, the need to revise the existing policies, importance of research and development in this sector, effective rules and regulations, innovative utilisation of resources of Nepali diaspora were among the major issues discussed in the dialogue. The discussion was based on the policy brief aiming to support the policymakers and policy implementers to come up with pragmatic and effective models and schemes with a rich and diverse set of knowledge from the panellists. The event brought together more than 60 policymakers, CSOs, private companies, journalists and other relevant policy stakeholders. In the ECON Talks Series, the dialogues will continue to feature panels with three key policy stakeholders - policy beneficiaries, policy critics and policy implementers and championship of the major takeaways by the young parliamentarian as the policy guardian. On the occasion, Lawmaker Thapa highlighted the power of Nepali diaspora and stressed the necessity of utilising the pool of resources that we have with the Nepalis living in foreign lands in order to escalate the country’s economy with diaspora investments. Thapa said, “In the context of bringing in the Diaspora investments to Nepal, it is necessary to revise and implement proper policy, rules and provisions that allow Nepali diaspora to invest in Nepal from wherever they are. The provisions to invest in both large scale industries and small enterprises should be kept open.” Executive Director of Daayitwa, Susit Dhakal gave his opening remarks to commence the third policy dialogue of the ECON TALKS Series. He emphasized Daayitwa’s purpose as an organisation to advocate for the economic progress of Nepal. “Since 2013, Daayitwa has been working in the field of rural entrepreneurship and good governance to ensure social harmony and long-term economic growth in Nepal. This series is one of the initiatives taken to reach our larger vision. We have organised this series to have meaningful discussions with relevant stakeholders on existing economic policies of Nepal, derive impactful policy recommendations and further advocate them to the relevant Parliamentary Committees through the Parliamentarians supporting this initiative as the Policy Guardian.” “The minimum threshold for FDI needs to be decreased to a much lesser amount from the existing bar of Rs 20 million to attract investments in small and medium enterprises,” said Ram Chandra Tiwari, Director General of the Department of Industry, MoICS, while making his policy remarks at the event. The third policy dialogue of the ECON Talks Series has successfully built a strong base for the policy recommendations to achieve the maximum economic growth potential in this demographic window by finding innovative ways of mobilisation of human resources and key lessons to have impactful and incentive contributions of youth employment to accelerate economic growth of Nepal. The dialogue was moderated by television journalist Sama Thapa. The first two dialogues of the series focused on women's economic empowerment and youth employment respectively. Three more similar dialogues will be organised under the ECON Talks Series. Daayitwa has introduced the ‘ECO Talks’ with a mission to advocate and promote evidence-led policy decisions for the economic growth of the nation. The ECO Talks Policy Dialogue Series is a collaborative effort of Daayitwa and NDI that aims to support lawmakers to engage with stakeholders on key economic policy issues regarding Nepal’s economic development. READ ALSO: