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Even after the introduc­tion of the Plastic Bag Directive (2016) and declaration of a nationwide ban on import, export, distribution, use, and sale of polythene bags below 30 microns in thickness, the use of plastic bags in the country continues. Excess use of plastic bags is a big source of urban pollution and it harms the health of cattle that inadvertently ingest these bags. Prem Sunwar wanted to do something about it. He thus established Deep Paper Bag Industries Pvt. Ltd, whose main remit became to import photo-degradable bags from India. These plastic bags decay when they come in contact with soil and sun­light. This bag is made of corn flour and cellulosic fiber and goes by the name of “Nature Cure Bio Bags”. The entire decay process takes about 15 days. It has already been successfully tested by the government of India as well as Nepal Academy of Science and Technology.

Initially, Deep Paper imported 1,000 kilos of the photo-degradable bags from G.R. Virindera Industries in India which manufactures and prints these bags. The price ranges from Rs 350-400 per kilo depending on the purchase amount. The bags imported by Nepal has a print of Lord Bud­dha with the statement “Buddha was born in Nepal” along with another statement “We Make Nepal Beautiful”.

Pradeep Kumar Dhakal, the spokesperson of Deep Paper, says the response to the prod­uct is good and the bags are in high demand. Since they initially imported only 1,000 kilos, they are already out of stock. “Gro­cery stores and organic houses bought many bags,” he says. “We are looking to import more.

Hopefully, we will be able to meet the demand pretty soon.” As previous unsuccessful attempts suggest, putting a full-stop to the use of plastic bags is almost impossible. Promoting the use of photo-degradable bags seems like a more viable option. They aren’t that expensive either. If Nepal can establish a photo-degradable bag industry and import the know-how, then we can imag­ine a future when all non-biodegradable plastic bags will be gone.

Nepal Airline Corporation’s second wide-body aircraft has arrived in Nepal. The A330-200 with registration ‘9N-ALZ’ is named ‘Makalu’.The first wide-body had arrived on June 28. The aircraft has since flown to New Delhi on its maiden proofing flight and is all set to oper­ate commercial flights to Qatar starting August 1.

The general manager of NAC Sugat Ratna Kansakar along with his team had flown to Toulouse, France for the purchase of the sec­ond aircraft.

This new aircraft has 272 seats, just like the first one, out of which 18 are business class and 256 are economy class seats.

These two wide-body aircrafts were purchased via a loan of Rs 12 billion from the Employees Provi­dent Fund and the Citizen Invest­ment Trust, with guarantee from Nepal Government. Each aircraft cost around $105 million.

The corporation believes these two aircraft will help make ‘Visit Nepal 2020’ a grand success. It has also made public its commercial plan of increasing its international flight market share from the cur­rent 9 percent to 17 percent.

Makalu plans to fly to des­tinations in Europe, the US, Japan and South Korea. In the first stage, it will fly to Japan, Korea and Saudi Arabia. NAC plans to provide direct flights to the US and Europe when it purchases a third aircraft.

The government has identified five criteria for the identification and development of 100 new tourist destinations in the country. The criteria were selected following a discussion among representatives of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, the Nepal Tourism Board and other tourism stakeholders, says Ghanshyam Upad­hyaya, joint-secretary at the ministry. In selecting the tourist destinations, heritage sites that are at least 100 years old will be prioritized as the ministry believes that these sites will have an easier time getting global recognition. “Nepal is known across the world for its heritage and cultural sites and the government plans to preserve and pro­mote these places,” says Upadhyaya. Similarly, another criteria is presence of lakes, ponds or water bodies spread over five square kilometers.

Further, popular tourist destinations which lack physical infrastructure will also be promoted. At present, the Khap­tad and Bardiya national reserves are popular tourist destinations that none­theless are short of physical infrastruc­tures like good hotels and lodges.

Tourist destinations for which devel­opment plans and blueprints are ready will also identified in the list of 100, according to Upadhyaya. The govern­ment will use the Public Private Partner­ship (PPP) model to develop infrastruc­tures of select destinations and to link different tourist spots.

The central government will be coor­dinating with the local and provincial bodies for the job. From among the tour­ist spots identified by the government as well as by the private stakeholders, 100 will be selected and developed. The gov­ernment has allocated Rs 500 million in 2018-2019 for the effort. The current plan is a part of the government’s ambi­tious project of attracting two million tourists in 2020. The government also plans to make tourism industry capable of contributing 25 percent of the GDP by 2025. Right now tourism makes up for 9 percent of the GDP.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) launched the fully automated electronic trading system of shares in the secondary market on July 17, the first day of the new fiscal. Traders, brokers and stakeholders of NEPSE were all agog. On July 3, NEPSE had tested the requi­site software, which would allow inves­tors to post purchase and sales order and provide them online payment, clearing and settlement facilities. The NEPSE Online Trading System (NOTS) had been purchased from YCO Pvt Ltd for Rs 6.4 million and the system was successfully tested by an Indian company, a third party. So far so good.

But when the NOTS came into oper­ation on July 17, few seemed satisfied because it had failed to stem the long bearish trend. This was against the expectation that the new system would increase the number of market partici­pants and also ease trading of existing market players, thereby boosting the market. It wasn’t meant to be. NEPSE slumped to 1,193.39 from 1,200.09 during the trading week of July 15-19.

Although the market indices saw a 12.27 increase on the first working day of the trading week on July 16, the second day saw a decline in the indices by 8.05 points. Then, on July 18, trading was disrupted for two hours due to techni­cal problems at the NEPSE data center and fiber connections, limiting trading to Rs175.37 million, while the NEPSE plunged by 5.54 points.

In fact, the bearish trend in NEPSE had been evident all through the previous fiscal. During the mid-July 2017 to mid-July 2018 period, investors lost Rs 421.69 billion. The share market swooned due to oversupply supply of shares and fall in demand caused by political uncertainty.

The sour investor mood is also reflected in market capitalization. On the last day of the fiscal 2016-17, the market capitalization of traded shares stood at Rs 1,856.82 billion, according to NEPSE. On July 16, the last day of the fiscal 2017-18, the market value of listed shares had decreased to Rs 1,435.13 billion. In the one year, the NEPSE index plunged by 370.13 points, to close at 1,212.36 points on July 16.