New leadership at FNCCI: Shekhar Golchha stands at its helm as President

The newly elected executive committee of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), the country’s largest private sector umbrella body, has assumed office on November 29 amidst the challenge of a flailing economy that is facing severe setbacks due to manifold distresses caused by the COVID19 pandemic. The dynamic Shekhar Golchha is a renowned corporate figure who will be leading the FNCCI for the next three years. Golchha has a strong legacy of his predecessors to uphold, he is the grandson of Nepal’s first industrialist. Late Ram Lal Golchha had set up Biratnagar Jute Mills in 1936. His father late Hulaschand Golchha had expanded the business in different verticals. Hulaschand used to be the Vice President of the FNCCI back in 1990. In fact, his father had drafted the statute of the private sector umbrella organisation and played a contributing role to expand the network of FNCCI nationwide along with the expanded role of the private sector after economic liberalisation in 1990. Hulaschand Golchha was confirmed to be the unanimously elected President, unfortunately he encountered serious health problems and had to discontinue his active involvement in FNCCI. Shekhar Golchha is a third-generation entrepreneur with a long standing involvement with FNCCI in different capacites. He served as Senior Vice President in the previous term. The statute of FNCCI offers the Senior Vice President to take lead of the organisation in the subsequent tenure without competing in the election, whereas different positions from the Senior Vice President to Executive Committee Members come from the election process. The 54th AGM of FNCCI held on November 26-28, seven months behind schedule due to travel restrictions and other barriers imposed by Covid 19. It is viewed that it took 27 years for the Golchha family to take the helm of the FNCCI and it is believed that Shekhar Golchha is the right man to lead the organisation in the current fragile state of the economy. The new team at FNCCI has envisaged joining hands with the government and other stakeholders based on their strategic paper. Shekhar Golchha, President of FNCCI, has said that the organisation is framing a strategic paper which will define the areas and ways of cooperation and coordination with stakeholders to ensure better results as currently businesses require intensive care and there is added need to improve investment climate and create jobs. Talking briefly about the strategic paper that is yet to be matured to share with the government and stakeholders, President Golchha said they will seek direct grant for MSMEs and other means of incentives like deferral in revenue submission, loan repayment and waiver of other fees and charges that need to be paid to the government for the survival and gradual recovery of the hard-hit sectors. The private sector umbrella body has sought a permanent mechanism in the government to facilitate entrepreneurship development, protection of MSMEs through capital, technology, and some handholding to cope with the unprecedented setback caused by the pandemic. Further, he laid emphasis on irrelevant and old-fashioned dozens of laws related to industry and finance to strengthen business-friendly environment. “Effective execution of project based collateral lending is fundamental to maximise access to finance for entrepreneurship development,’ Golchha stressed. For the year 2020-2022 the team led by Shekhar Golchha comprises of Chandra Prasad Dhakal of the IME Group as Senior Vice President. Dhakal is president-elect, he will succeed Golchha in next tenure. Similarly, Dinesh Shrestha has been elected as District and Municipal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) Vice President. Shrestha represents the Dhulikhel CCI. Ramchandra Sanghai of the Triveni Group has been elected as Vice President Associate, and Anjan Shrestha of the Laxmi Group is elected as Vice President Commodities. In FNNCI, there are 107 members from District and Municipal CCIs, 103 members in Commodities, 923 members in Associate and 12 members are the bilateral CCIs. The weightage of vote is 50% for District and Municipal CCIs, Associate and Commodities have 30% and 20% weightage respectively. Treasurer of the FNCCI is elected from among from the members, this term being Sukunta Lal Hirachan. The office bearers of the FNCCI led by Golchha comprises the aforementioned Vice Presidents, Treasurer, Immediate Past President Bhawani Rana and distinguished member Pashupati Murarka. Office bearers are known as the core team. Besides these, the Presidents of Provincial CCIs remain as Executive Members. The District and Municipal CCIs elects 18 members, 14 members from commodities, 19 from Associate and one each from the bilateral CCIs and founding members group. Two of the members namely Mangesh Lal Shrestha and Birat Thapa from the Associate category settled their tie vote in consensus to represent FNCCI for first and second half of the terms respectively.