Nepal Weekly - 2026-08-05
Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.
Avalanche Kills Nimsdai and Five Nepali Guides
An avalanche on Pakistan's 8,051-metre Broad Peak on July 31 killed six of Nepal's most decorated high-altitude guides, including Nirmal Purja, the Elite Exped founder who led the first winter ascent of K2 in January 2021. Gyaljen Sherpa, who held a Guinness World Record for summiting Kanchenjunga three times in a single season, and Kili Pemba Sherpa, who had been one of the ten climbers on that 2021 K2 team, were among the dead, along with three other senior guides. Nepali tourism entrepreneurs say the private sector had rescue pilots and aircraft ready to mobilize but were held up waiting on diplomatic coordination and official authorization from Kathmandu. The government has not said when or whether it will open an inquiry into the response.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post (victims' careers), Thetourismtimes (government appeal)
Home Minister Signs 34 Points, Denies All of Them
Home Minister Sudan Gurung inked a 13-point deal in Janakpur on August 1 with the United Hindu Front and Hindu Samrat Sena, the last of 34 points agreed in Sunsari, Siraha and Dhanusha in three days. Point one commits the government to an all-party talk within three months on declaring Nepal a Hindu state again, a demand from groups whose wider charter also called for auditing madrasa finances and deporting "Rohingya, Bangladeshi and Pakistani infiltrators." Within a day, Dhanusha's Chief District Officer Prem Prasad Luitel, despite being “in the room”, was telling reporters no agreement existed at all, only a memorandum "received" along with demands "listened to." Nepal's constitution still makes a claim that the country is secular.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post (six-point memorandum), myRepublica, myRepublica (12-point charter), Nepal News (13-point measures), myRepublica (curfew lifted)
Washington's Visa Bond Turns Permanent
The US State Department's visa bond pilot, launched August 20, 2025, became permanent this Monday, with the ceiling for Nepali B1/B2 applicants raised from $15,000 to $20,000, more than ten times domestic annual per capita income. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal spent the past four months trying to press visiting US officials to drop Nepal from the 50-country list, apparently to no avail. Washington justifies then rates by referring to overstay rates, document fraud, and weak identity verification. Consular officers are expected to default to a $15,000 bond, refundable if travelers leave on time, but the money must be posted in full before the visa is issued, and the applicant finds out the amount only at the interview.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post (bond tier structure), The Kathmandu Post (applicant impact story), Nepal News (pilot program stats)
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Riyadh Freezes Visas After Nepal Shutters Centre
Saudi Arabia's embassy stopped processing work visas for laborers in five categories (loading and unloading, portering, cart operation and construction), after authorities shuttered the Industrial Training Institute in Basundhara last Wednesday for running Skill Verification Programme tests without legal authorization. The institute's operator, Sai Vision Pvt Ltd, had been charging workers Rs 10,000 ($66) for a process built around a $50 exam fee, with no legal channel for workers or recruiters to pay Saudi authorities directly. Somewhat bizarrely, perhaps, the labour ministry says the SVP programme has not been suspended, just the institute running it.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post
Government Ditches Lowest-Bidder Rule
Nepal has scrapped the lowest-bidder rule that’s been the measure of public works contracts for nineteen years, replacing it with a formula that awards contracts to whoever bids closest to the average of the remaining bids. The Second Amendment to the Public Procurement Act took effect July 16 after an unusual path. A presidential ordinance in April was fast-tracked around Parliament's two-house process and converted into law in July. On a contract estimated at Rs 100 million ($658,000), a firm bidding a genuine 28 percent below estimate, on lower overheads and owned machinery, would lose to a rival quoting Rs 96 million ($632,000) because that number would be closer to the pack's average of Rs 92.4 million ($608,000). The Federation of Contractors' Associations of Nepal has welcomed the change, saying it will be a fix for reckless underbidding that’s resulted in stalled projects.
Read more: myRepublica
IN Groupe Called Back After Losing ID Contract
Nepal's National Identity Management Information System has been glitching since early July, and IN Groupe technicians flown in from France are working on it. New applicants get a National Identity Number but no approval to go along with it, leaving 13 agencies including the Department of Passports, private banks and immigration accepting manual confirmation pages as a workaround. On May 8, the government cancelled the global tender for NIDMIS operation and maintenance, calling it a matter of digital sovereignty, and chose to run it in-house. Director general Krishna Poudel says full restoration is expected next week. That is the same week the central bank's amendment makes the ID card mandatory for eKYC on digital payments. Two weeks ago the government also handed IN Groupe a direct-procurement deal for 10 million ABIS biometric licences, bypassing normal tender rules.
Read more: Biometricupdate (printed cards), The Kathmandu Post (in-house concerns)
100 Days of Silence
Prime Minister Balendra Shah's first 100 days in office have brought no press conferences, no ministry access for reporters, and an advertising squeeze on private media. Editors at a prominent online portal killed a piece comparing Shah to Kazi Lhendup Dorjee, the Sikkimese leader who oversaw his kingdom's 1975 merger into India, after a colleague warned it would "invite retaliation" from Rastriya Swatantra Party supporters, who have organized campaigns against critical outlets before. The article had been prompted by Shah's May 31 remark in Parliament that "not only India but Nepal too has encroached upon Indian territories in many places." No government official called. No formal warning was issued. The piece died on an editor's desk.
Read more: Newslaundry
FM Joint Secretary Arrested in Passport Scam
Nepal Police's Central Investigation Bureau arrested Foreign Ministry Joint Secretary Pushparaj Bhattarai this week over more than 500 blank travel documents he handled at the Passport Division in 2008-2009. Three of the docs allegedly went to Tibetans falsely identified as refugees bound for Germany. The case has been on the shelf, dormant, since July 2011, when the German Embassy in Kathmandu flagged five suspicious documents issued in 2009. The signatures belong to branch officer Ram Prasad Subedi, now also a Joint Secretary and currently Nepal's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva. Bhattarai told investigators someone must have "imitated and misused" his signature.
Read more: Online Khabar
Bucharest Beats Bahrain as Migrant Magnet
Romania has become the springboard of choice for workers headed to Europe, part of a 21-fold rise in labour migration to the continent over the past decade. Of the 792,187 labour permits issued in FY 2025/26, 93,508 went to European destinations, more than 53,000 of them new permits, and the Gulf's share fell from 77% to 64% as workers shy away from conflict risk while eyeing Europe's higher wages and shot at permanent residency. Remittances were $14.59 billion in the first 11 months of the fiscal year, a record, even as the RSP-led government promised 1.2 million new jobs at home over five years. An EU-commissioned report from Nepal Economic Forum notes that recruitment rules still treat Gulf-bound and Europe-bound migrants the same, leaving newer arrivals paying Gulf-level fees for European-level jobs.
Read more: Nepali Times
Rastra Bank Puts a Price on Policy Chaos
A new central bank working paper, the first to build an Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for Nepal, tracked Google search patterns from January 2011 to April 2026 and found that sustained policy confusion can knock up to 10 percent off the Nepse index, cut real imports by 15 percent, shrink private sector credit by 5 percent and shave around 2 percent off GDP. The Nepse reacts fastest, dropping roughly 5 percent right after an uncertainty shock before sliding further if the confusion drags on.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post
Ministry Opens Applications for Ambassador
Sixteen ambassadorial posts are vacant, including Beijing, Delhi, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. Five more envoys are working on expired terms in Cairo, Manama, Dhaka, Yangon and Nepal's UN mission in Vienna. The Foreign Ministry is reviewing applications from Nepal's first open call for the job, with recommendations expected within two weeks. Embassies in South Africa, Brazil and Denmark were shuttered this fiscal year.
Read more: myRepublica (vacant country list), Ratopati (mission totals)
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