Back to the eighties

Stringent government measures will only throttle formal businesses and push them to leave Nepal.

It seems folks in the government are being inspired by the old Panchayat regime and coming up with one draconian regulation after another. The central bank has posted new circulars making it impossible to undertake foreign travel without dipping into informal sources. Every Nepali can only avail of $1,500 twice a year for foreign trips. So, if you are travelling for business purposes to Europe or the United States, this would be about two and a half days of travel twice a year. Similarly, people who have US dollar accounts in Nepal could use dollar credit cards with certain limits. Now, this has been brought down to $ 2,000 each year.