Nepal business, finance and trade news, every Wednesday.
Kathmandu Bills the World for Bhotekoshi Flood
Nepal has told the UN's Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage it wants climate reparations, not aid, as it claims that industrialized emitters bear a "moral and legal obligation" for the Bhotekoshi disaster. The reparations claim is being run in parallel to a donor drive that includes a $49.6 million UN flash appeal. Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal is going public with the reparations line and has told his ministry to work diplomatic channels for grants instead of loans. A Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment has pegging the rebuild bill at more than Rs 400 billion ($2.6 billion) and it seems likely that the final figure will be at least a third higher than that, even.
Read more: Nepali Times, The Kathmandu Post, Online Khabar, The Kathmandu Post
Trishuli Tunnel Gives Up Survivors
Rescuers pulled two men alive from a flooded tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower project on Friday, nine days after they went missing in the August 26 Bhotekoshi flood; a Chinese worker was later freed from a tunnel at Upper Trishuli-1 by a joint Nepal-South Korea team, and a 64-year-old woman was dug out of a mud-buried house in Nuwakot. A mechanical foreman at the 60-megawatt plant, said as many as 40 to 45 people may have been inside when the flood came tearing through it, which for unexplained reasons, is far more than the expected shift of four to six. About 500 of the roughly 900 missing hydropower workers are thought to be trapped in tunnels in a dozen locations, where Indian, Chinese, South Korean and US teams are working through debris with thermal drones and explosives to try and free them. Nepal's disaster authority says the confirmed death toll was 1,357 (as of yesterday), with 5,326 still missing, including 587 foreign nationals.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post, The Kathmandu Post, The Rising Nepal, The Annapurna Express, The Guardian
Flood Claims Skyrocket as Cell Towers Stay Down
Non-life insurers have reported more than Rs 26 billion ($171 million) in claims so far from the Bhotekoshi disaster, a figure the of course will continue to rise once life and accident policies are counted. The regulator has waived normal documentation rules and allowed insurers put forward up to half of the value of assessed losses instead of waiting for the standard two-month payout window. Telecom operators are counting the toll also. Nepal Telecom says it lost 83 towers, Ncell lost 27. Ncell thinks direct damage is going to be more than Rs 90 million ($592,000), but while its been damaging and expensive, the Prime Minister told parliament 95 percent of telecom service has already been restored.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post (payout timeline), The Kathmandu Post (fiber cable damage)
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Flood Bill to Complicate LDC Exit
Change Initiative thinks flood losses will be about $1.95 billion (that’s a hefty 4.3% of GDP), but has banded their estimate as being from $1.38 billion to $2.70 billion. The bill is due shortly months before Nepal is (was?) scheduled to graduate from Least Developed Country status on November 24. The research group wants the UN Committee for Development Policy to re-calculate its vulnerability math using interim data before the General Assembly signs off, and has floated the idea of "graduation-with-conditions," which might allow for continued access to cheap financing and climate support until reconstruction milestones are met.
Read more: The Himalayan Times
Damaged Dams Drag the Hydropower Index Down
Roughly a dozen hydropower projects along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers took flood damage, but only about half of them belong to companies listed on NEPSE (including Rasuwagadhi, Chilime, Mailung Khola and Trishuli 3B). Most listed hydropower companies suffered no direct physical damage, but that fact hasn't stopped the hydropower sub-index from shedding about 65 points since the disaster, dragging insurers bracing for claims along with it and pulling the NEPSE index down around 16 points. Hydropower makes up about 17.5 percent of NEPSE's market cap (111 listed companies). Banking, financial services and insurance make up another 51.8 percent.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post
Sauraha Empties Out Over a Flood It Never Saw
Sauraha's Jungle Safari Lodge has 34 rooms and, most nights this week, has found most of them empty. Chitwan's Regional Hotel Association says occupancy across the district is below 5 percent, a collapse driven by the international coverage that followed the disaster, despite the fact that the floods never made it that far. Royal Tulip Chitwan, a 65-room property run by KTM Hospitality, has lost 80 percent of its bookings. Flights from Kathmandu to Bharatpur continue to run normally, and alternate routes including the Tribhuvan Highway and the Hetauda-Kulekhani road are able to bypass the washed-out Krishnabhir part of the Prithvi Highway. Sauraha's 125 hotels, built to handle 8,000 visitors a day, are despairing as they watch peak season pass with a "handful of Chinese tourists," and little else.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post
China Discloses Little on Gyirong Flood Numbers
Twelve days after the flood, Nepal has identified more than 1,350 dead and continues to track thousands missing, with DNA samples collected from 1,181 bodies and 1,195 relatives. Chinese authorities, on the other hand, took five days to share that 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for on their side of the border. Foreign journalists waited more than a week for a chaperoned visit to Gyirong. The International Campaign for Tibet says at least 300 homes were destroyed in Gyirong, that relocated villagers' communications with the outside world have been "extremely limited and curtailed," and that the toll is likely much higher than Chinese officials have been willing to share thus far.
Read more: AP News (missing workers), NPR, myRepublica (DNA identification)
PM Shah Takes the UNGA Podium
Prime Minister Balendra Shah will leave for New York on September 22, taking the UN General Assembly slot that the Cabinet had previously given to the Foreign Minister (before the disaster). The PM will address the Assembly on September 24. Nepali Congress president Gagan Thapa wants Shah to go beyond the loss-and-damage appeal and lean on glacier science, saying Nepal's claims "need to be based on scientific studies" and should also target grant-based climate finance (see also the first story, above). Shah will return home on September 25, finishing out his first trip abroad since taking charge on March 27.
Read more: The Kathmandu Post (COP31 Türkiye dates), myRepublica (prior PM precedents)
Oli Walks Free, Gen Z Reforms Stall
Nepal had its first Gen Z Martyrs' Day on September 8 with a nationwide public holiday for the 76 that were killed in last year's uprising. Former PM KP Sharma Oli and ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, arrested in late March on culpable homicide charges, spent about 13 days in custody before the Supreme Court ordered them released. Five months later, both are free on personal recognisance, with no charges filed and no evidence disclosed. The Gen Z Council that was promised in the December 10-point agreement still hasn't been convened and an independent review found only 38 of the Balen Shah administration's first 100 commitments have been implemented to date
Read more: Online Khabar, Spotlight Nepal (holiday declaration), The Kathmandu Post (38 of 100 commitments), Online Khabar (Prachanda), Spotlight Nepal (Karki's advice)
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