As political crisis deepens in Nepal, a senior official with the International Monetary Fund has said the Himalayan kingdom needs stability first to pursue reform agenda.
“Nepal needs political stability before it can tackle a large economic reform agenda, David Burton, the International Monetary Fund’s director for Asia, said on Sunday, in an interview.”They need political stability and an end to the insurgency to get things going in Nepal,” Burton told Reuters news agency in Washington D.C.
“Their need is to get growth going, get reforms going, get pro-growth policies going,” he said of Nepal—one of the world’s poorest countries even before it plunged into political crisis 14 months ago. “We haven’t completed any reviews for some time and it’s hard to implement sensible policies in the current environment,” said Burton
Meanwhile, IMF country office in Kathmandu has refuted reports that IMF has pulled out its country representative in Nepal amidst deteriorating security situation in the country.
When contacted by Nepalnews, an economist at the IMF’s country office at Baluwatar said on Monday that these reports were not true and that IMF country representative in Nepal, Sukhwinder Singh, was on leave. nepalnews.com by Apr 23 06