Kathmandu. Foreign employment and remittances, which are the backbone of Nepal’s economy, are at serious risk due to the ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the Gulf region. <\/p>\n
Remittance inflow contributes 28 percent to Nepal’s economy. This had a direct impact on the remittance inflow when Nepali workers returned from the Middle East and Gulf countries during the coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n
According to the latest statistics of the Department of Foreign Employment, a large number of Nepali youths are still queuing up for work permits in the same sectors where the shadow of war and instability is increasing. <\/p>\n
According to statistics, the number of people taking work permit is high in the major countries of the Gulf and Middle East. Likewise, 15,137 were granted for UAE, 11,592 for Saudi Arabia, 11,580 for Qatar and 5,443 for Kuwait. Similarly, 1,127 have taken work permit for Bahrain, 1,205 for Oman and 125 for Israel. <\/p>\n
More than 45,000 Nepalis have got work permit in these seven countries in a month. These statistics show that a large part of Nepal’s youth workforce and economy are still dependent on this sector. <\/p>\n
One in three households in Nepal uses remittance money. Nepali workers employed in the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries in the shadow of the Iran-Israel war are now in a situation of death or escape. As the clouds of war darken, the tensions between them and their dependent families are increasing. <\/p>\n
According to Nepal Rastra Bank, the current fiscal year 2082. In the first six months of 2018-18, remittances amounted to Rs 1,062.92 billion. Fiscal Year 2081. In 2018, a total of Rs 1,723.27 billion was remitted. This is 19.2 percent more than the remittance inflow of the last fiscal year. In the last fiscal year, Rs 14.45 trillion was remitted. According to Nepal Rastra Bank, the remittance inflow has increased by 16.5 percent in the previous fiscal year. <\/p>\n
If tensions in the Middle East prolong or take the form of war, it will have a direct impact on Nepal’s foreign exchange reserves and remittances. If the workers have to return unsafe or if new workers are not able to leave, the flow of remittances will decrease. This will make the country’s balance of payments situation negative. <\/p>\n
Inflation and the impact on the kitchen: Since this is the main source of petroleum, the war will increase the price of fuel. Rising fuel prices mean higher transportation costs. This will directly increase Nepal’s kitchen, food prices and overall consumer spending. <\/p>\n
Most of the Nepalis who go abroad for foreign employment go abroad by taking loans at 2 to 3 percent (meter interest) or mortgaging their farmland. Thousands of workers who have recently gone through brokers have not been able to recover their investment. <\/p>\n
If the workers are forced to return home in the middle of the war, they are sure to be crushed under the burden of debt. This could lead to more social and psychological problems in Nepal. <\/p>\n
Nepal itself is going through an internal economic slowdown. In such a situation, the domestic market capacity to consume the manpower returned from abroad is weak. As the sources of income shrink and inflation rises, the savings of the general public will be almost zero. When the economy is unstable, private sector investment will shrink further, which will make Nepal’s situation even worse. <\/p>\n
Statistics show that this dependence on foreign employment is as much an opportunity for Nepal as it is a big risk. As even a small spark in the Middle East can destroy Nepal’s remittance economy, the government seems to be late in looking for alternatives and creating employment opportunities in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kathmandu. Foreign employment and remittances, which are the backbone of Nepal’s economy, are at serious risk due to the ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and the Gulf region. Remittance inflow contributes 28 percent to Nepal’s economy. This had a direct impact on the remittance inflow when Nepali workers returned from the Middle East […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":290000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45031,45060,45159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner-news-en","category-corporate-en","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290003,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290002\/revisions\/290003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media\/290000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancekhabar.com\/ikbrapi\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}