Experts have stressed on the need of clear policies to better manage foreign employment—one of the major sources of foreign exchange earnings for the country.

Presenting a paper at a round table discussion organised by the Management Association of Nepal (MAN) in the capital on Friday, Ramesh Koirala, treasurer of MAN said the government had earned revenue worth Rs 1.5 billion from foreign employment in the fiscal year 2004/05. In the fiscal year 2005/06, the revenue is expected to have crossed Rs 2.4 billion. This is about 12 percent of the total direct tax that government collects in a year.

According to Koirala, an unskilled labour, who goes to Malaysia on a contract for a period of two years, can hardly save Rs 100,000 after paying debt, interest on the capital he has borrowed, taxes and other expenditures if he is employed only in normal working hours.

Other speakers of the program stressed that the government should develop foreign employment as an industrial sector and encourage more and more people to go abroad and ensure that remittance received is invested in productive sector back in the country.