His Majesty the King, following advice and consent from the Council of Ministers, has promulgated five ordinances related to economic matters on Thursday, an announcement said.

According to a statement from the Council, the King promulgated the Finance Ordinance, Expenditure Ordinance, Loan Reimbursement Ordinance, Local Self Governance (First Amendment) Ordinance and Loan and Security (4th Amendment) Ordinance.

Finance Minister Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani, during a press meet organised to unveil the Ordinances, said, the government has not brought any major changes in the existing policies.

“The Ordinances are the continuation of government’s policies and programs announced in the current fiscal year’s budget last July,” Dr Lohani said.

As expected, the government has slashed taxes in the imports of mobile sets and medicines.

Similarly, the government has incised customs duty on ambulance and hearse. Customs duty of mobile sets is lowered to 5 percent to 15 percent.

The government has also lowered its share in the revenue earned from community administered forests from 40 percent to 10 percent. This, however, does not apply in all cases.

Likewise, the government has announced measures to expedite reforms in revenue administration. It has announced to form a different institution under the Inland Revenue Department to deal with the big taxpayers.

The government has decided to award 50 percent of the royalty received from the district electricity authority to the District Development Committee (DDC) so that the same can be used for the developmental works in the local level.

The ordinance has paid no attention to the appeal of private sector to slash the present income and corporate tax rates to provide relief to terror stricken private sector. nepalnews.com mr/pd Jan 16