Nepal sees slight improvement in foreign exchange reserves

The foreign exchange reserves, which stood at USD 9.58 billion last month, improved to USD 9.61 billion.

NL Today

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Kathmandu: Nepal has seen a slight improvement in foreign exchange reserves.

According to the data released by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) for the first nine months of the current fiscal year, the foreign exchange reserves have increased by USD 30 million compared to the previous month.

The foreign exchange reserves, which stood at USD 9.58 billion last month, have reached USD 9.61 billion. A slight improvement has been witnessed after Nepal made it mandatory for importers to maintain a 100 percent cash margin for opening a letter of credit (LC) to import certain goods.

Based on the imports for nine months of 2021/22, the foreign exchange reserves are sufficient to cover the prospective merchandise imports of 7.4 months, and merchandise and services imports of 6.6 months.

However, when compared to the earlier year, the gross foreign exchange reserves decreased 16.5 percent to Rs 1167.92 billion in mid-April 2022 from Rs 1399.03 billion in mid-July 2021. In the US dollar terms, the gross foreign exchange reserves decreased 18.2 percent to 9.61 billion in mid-April 2022 from 11.75 billion in mid-July 2021, according to the central bank.

NRB said that the y-o-y consumer price inflation stood at 7.28 percent in the ninth month of 2021/22 compared to 3.10 percent a year ago. Food and beverage inflation stood at 7.40 percent whereas non-food and service inflation stood at 7.18 percent in the review month.

Remittance has continued to drop, according to the central bank. Remittance inflows decreased 0.6 percent to Rs.724.74 billion in the review period against an increase of 16.5 percent in the same period of the previous year.