Nepal Weekly - 2026-05-13

May 13, 2026

Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.

a view of a mountain range in the distance — Photo by Aaron Santelices on Unsplash

Seven Percent Growth Plan Inspires a Walkout

President Ram Chandra Paudel delivered the government's FY 2083/84 (2026/27) policy and program to a joint parliamentary session on Monday, with targets that include 7% annual growth over the next decade, 30,000 MW of electricity in the same timeframe, and the integration of all economic transactions into digital platforms. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle, appearing before the Finance Committee the same day, put some numbers on the ambition. Regular government obligations run about Rs 13.3 trillion ($87 billion), leaving a shortfall of roughly Rs 7 trillion ($46 billion) even before any new projects are begun. The opposition was unmoved. UML parliamentary leader Ram Bahadur Thapa said the document "entirely rejectable," the Nepali Congress dismissed it as a continuation of old policies, and the RPP accused the government of producing a "copy-paste" document that forgot Karnali and Sudurpashchim existed. The harshest critique came from inside Prime Minister Balen Shah's own base when Gen Z activist Tanuja Pandey publicly told him to stop acting "like a ruffian" after Shah walked out of parliament as the President was still reading the policy that his cabinet had written.

Read more: The Himalayan Times (policy targets), myRepublica (digital economy), Khabarhub (opposition), The Rising Nepal (Rs 7 trillion shortfall), myRepublica (Pandey's rebuke)

Balen's Blitz Meets the Bench

The Supreme Court has frozen three of Prime Minister Balendra Shah's signature moves this week. The justices issued interim orders against his push to scrap civil service trade unions, his dissolution of the Free Student Union, and his riverbank eviction drive that left more than 3,000 families needing to register for emergency shelter. The Nepal Bar Association's executive chairman says the court's intervention shows that the executive "has acted illegally.” Before that dust settled, Shah's Constitutional Council on May 8 recommended Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma as the next chief justice, skipping over three more-senior justices, including Acting Chief Justice Sapana Pradhan Malla, who called on fellow judges not to bow to a two-thirds majority or threats of impeachment. The government rests its case on Sharma's CV, saying he has a PhD in Labour Law from Tribhuvan University, has a stronger case disposal record, better academic credentials, and a cleaner reputation than those passed over.

Read more: Ratopati, myRepublica (seniority convention breach), The Hindu (RSP election mandate)

Reserves Pile Up, Nobody's Borrowing

Gross foreign exchange reserves were Rs 3.494 trillion ($22.99 billion) by mid-April, up 30.5 percent from mid-July 2025, and enough to cover 21.8 months of imports. The balance of payments surplus doubled year-on-year to $5.10 billion, and the current account surplus tripled to $4.32 billion from $1.64 billion. Reserves held by banks outside the NRB grew fastest, up 56.8 percent to Rs 412.32 billion ($2.71 billion). Reserves are now 57.2 percent of GDP, with Indian currency making up a fifth of total holdings. Banks are sitting on Rs 79.52 trillion ($523 billion) in deposits against Rs 58.74 trillion ($386 billion) worth of lending. Interbank rates are 2.75 percent and private credit demand remains flat.

Meta's Billions Exist Only in the Press Release

WorldLink CEO Keshav Nepal told Kantipur this week that there is no agreement, no NDA, and no $33 million Meta investment in a local data center, despite Nepal Khabar reporting exactly that. "If a foreign investment of that size were coming in, we would have announced it through a formal event," he said. Nepal Khabar headlined a Bichuten Data Vault announcement as "Google enters Nepal as strategic partner" when, in truth, Google is only supplying technical services, not capital.

Delhi Bails Out Paddy Season

Cabinet approved an emergency buy of 80,000 tonnes of fertilizer from India under a government-to-government arrangement, with paddy transplantation season weeks away and global prices still running hot thanks to the ongoing West Asia pressures. The fertilizer haul breaks down to 60,000 tonnes of urea and 20,000 tonnes of DAP, well short of the 150,000 tonnes that was originally being looked for. Agriculture Ministry official Ram Krishna Shrestha said that full subsidization would cost roughly Rs 80 billion ($526 million), against a Rs 28.82 billion ($190 million) budget. A fresh tender would take at least 225 days, but paddy season can’t wait.

Social Media Pays

PM Balendra Shah's required asset disclosure listed Rs 14.6 million ($96,000) in cash, with Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok named as the primary sources. Nepal Rastra Bank says that's not a problem. The central bank has a category for audiovisual remittances, and 4.6 million Facebook followers plus 1.3 million YouTube subscribers apparently qualify. Nepal pulled in Rs 3.53 billion ($23.2 million) from digital platforms in FY2024-25, and the first eight months of the current fiscal year have already booked Rs 2.90 billion ($19.1 million), up from Rs 2.24 billion ($14.7 million) a year earlier. Google's platforms account for 67 percent of inflows, Meta another 12.21 percent. The Rastra Bank admits the real figure is higher, since direct brand deals between creators and companies would not fall under the tracked categories.

Export the Beans, Import the Powder

Nepal imported 979,130 kg of coffee worth Rs 1.847 billion ($12.2 million) in the first nine months of FY2025/26, even as it exported 33,772 kg for Rs 71.8 million ($472,000). Ninety-seven percent of those exports were raw, unroasted beans heading to Japan, Germany, and the US under the "Himalayan Speciality Coffee" label at premium prices. What fills Kathmandu's cafes is mostly instant coffee from Vietnam and India, with processed extracts and concentrates accounting for Rs 1.508 billion ($9.9 million) of the import bill. Domestic production is 641 tonnes against annual demand of more than 2,800 tonnes.

Russia's 13-Project Offer Gathers Dust at Singha Durbar

Russia laid 13 infrastructure projects on the table in 2023, a railway line and road construction among them, following talks between then-National Assembly Chairman Ganesh Prasad Timilsina and Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko in Moscow. The Russian Embassy followed up with a formal letter to Timilsina on May 4 of that year. Nepal's Foreign Ministry still hasn't sent a formal reply. The files apparently never made it out of the building. By December 2025, Russia's Chargé d'Affaires Andrei Kiselenko was publicly grumbling about the "red tape" that confined the proposals to filing cabinets, saying it was "somewhat difficult to understand" the delay.

A $4,000 Surcharge That Hasn’t Stung

Nepal has handed out 492 Everest climbing permits for spring 2026, a record, after raising the foreign climbing royalty from $11,000 to $15,000 to try and thin the herd. Department of Tourism spokesperson Himal Gautam trumpeted the new high-water mark by saying "Records are to be broken!" An 11-member group is still working through paperwork, so the tally still climb a bit further (no pun intended). For context, permits issued were 381 in 2019, 479 in 2023, 421 in 2024, and 456 in 2025. Rope-fixing ran two weeks behind schedule after a serac collapsed on the route to Camp I, and ropes have now reached the South Col at 7,906 meters.

Smart Cell's Carcass Draws a Crowd

Smart Cell's license was automatically cancelled in mid-April 2023 after the telecom failed to clear roughly Rs 30 billion ($197 million) in arrears, putting its towers, network, and systems under Nepal Telecommunications Authority control. Former chairman Sarvesh Joshi has since been arrested by the CIB on fraud and criminal breach of trust charges. Banks that hold the towers and equipment as loan collateral are now keen to auction them off, but nobody has settled whether government seizure or bank collateral rights come first.

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