He says that although Nepal's young workforce has made significant progress in the IT sector, there is policy instability and a lack of basic infrastructure.
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Hemraj Dhakal, founder and managing director of IME Group, said that Nepal can reach the global market and compete through an information technology or knowledge-based economy.
Speaking at the first session of the Kantipur Economic Summit on ‘Permanent Policy to Accelerate the Private Sector’, Dhakal said that the government’s current focus on the IT sector is positive. ‘Considering our young workforce and English-speaking population, this is a very opportune time for this sector,’ he said. ‘Looking at the data of the past two-three years, it is seen that IT services worth about 20 billion rupees are being exported from Nepal annually.’
Although the government has previously praised this rapidly expanding sector, Dhakal complained that there are problems when policies change with the change of government in Nepal. ‘The tax on IT exports was sometimes set at 1 percent, sometimes 10 percent, sometimes 5 percent,’ he said. ‘If the current government can maintain policy stability, it will increase the confidence of investors in the IT sector.’
Dhakal said that there is a possibility that the IT sector’s contribution to Nepal’s gross domestic product (GDP) can be increased to more than 2 percent. For this, he pointed out that basic infrastructure such as connectivity should be ready.
