Latest
Friday, 9 October 2026
- Economy · Infrastructure
A decade in, Nepal's Fast Track expressway is half built and still has no agreed starting point
The army-built road meant to bring the Terai within an hour of Kathmandu now has a 2030 deadline, a cost of about Rs 212bn and the same unresolved question over where it begins that it faced in 2018.
- Companies · Energy
Nepal opens its grid to private power traders, at a price they call too high
The regulator's first wheeling charge ends the state utility's monopoly on paper. India's rules and the economics of trading may keep it alive in practice.
- Companies · Energy
Nepal's power exports hit a record, then the flood tested the surplus
Electricity sales to India and Bangladesh earned Rs 29.3bn (about $189m) last year. The August flood has shown how thin the margin behind that number is.
- Economy · Industry
Why Nepal's factories run at less than half their capacity
Cement kilns idle, steel mills lose their Indian market and new factory registrations fall. Manufacturing now makes up less than 6% of the economy.
- Economy · Property
Kathmandu's property market wakes up, helped by a rush to beat the taxman
Land registration revenue hit a three-year high as buyers raced a capital gains tax increase, and the central bank has loosened home-loan limits.
- Economy · Analysis
One year after the uprising, insurers have paid less than two-fifths of claims
The September 2025 protests cost the private sector Rs 33.5bn (about $216m) by official count. Businesses are still waiting for most of the money.
- Economy · Tourism
Tourism recovers from the uprising as China returns and Manaslu snows shut
Arrivals rose 12% in September and climbing royalties are up, but bad weather and a still-gutted Hilton show how fragile the season remains.
- Companies · Startups
Nepal's startups grow up under a thicket of new rules
A change at the top of eSewa, fare caps for ride-hailing apps and a troubled state loan scheme show how the state is catching up with the digital economy.
- Companies · Technology
Nepal's IT exports near $1bn, but the official books record a fraction
Software firms and freelancers now earn more abroad than many of the country's goods exporters, yet most of the money arrives labelled as remittance.
- Companies · Banking
Still on the grey list: what FATF scrutiny means for Nepal's banks and remitters
Assessors say Nepal's bank supervision passes muster; cooperatives, casinos, property and the failure to confiscate criminal assets do not. Here is what the grey list costs, and what would end it.
- Companies · Payments
Indian visitors pay by phone in Nepal; Nepalis in India still cannot
QR codes have become Nepal's most-used digital payment, and Indian tourists are using them everywhere from temples to tills, but the reverse link remains unfinished.
- Companies · Profile
Governor Poudel bets on cheap money to deliver 7% growth
Nepal's central bank chief, an academic economist, has kept policy loose and asked banks to lend Rs 652bn (about $4.2bn); the borrowers have yet to appear.
- Companies · Banking
Microfinance bad loans pass 10% as a lending model built for the poor strains
Defaults at Nepal's microlenders have jumped, tens of thousands of borrowers are blacklisted, and informal moneylenders charging 'meter byaj', interest that compounds against the borrower, remain the alternative.
- Companies · Explainer
How Nepal's savings cooperatives became shadow banks, and who is being paid back
Cooperatives took deposits like banks but were overseen like clubs; the 23 the federal government has declared troubled owe Rs 46bn to some 76,000 savers, and refunds that began in May cover a small fraction.
- Companies · Banking
How Nepal went from 30 commercial banks to 20, and why the shrinking has stalled
A capital rule written in 2015 forced a decade of mergers; the banks that came out of it are bigger, but not all of them are healthier.
- Opinion · Editorial
Nepal's business arrests: prosecute the owner, not the company
Nepal's business leaders want anticipatory bail. They should not get it. What they need, and what the economy needs, is enforcement that keeps sound companies running.
- Policy & Power · Power & Money
Burnt banknotes and arrest warrants: the money-laundering inquiries after September 9
Cash fragments in burned homes started a probe into three former prime ministers. The cases are moving slowly.
- Rise & Fall · Telecom
Nearly three years on, Nepal has yet to recognise the sale of Ncell
Axiata sold its 80% stake for a fixed $50m in 2023. Nepal's telecoms regulator has still not ruled on the sale, and the inquiry report on it is under a Supreme Court order.
- Companies · Commodities
South Asia's priciest tank: how the Gulf war reached Nepal's pumps
Nepal imports every litre of fuel through India. When Hormuz closed, Kathmandu paid more than anyone in the region.
- Companies · Energy
The Rasuwa flood that switched off a tenth of Nepal's power
A surge from Tibet wrecked hydropower plants, cut the main China trade route and cost Nepal a growth forecast.
- Companies · Banking
Nepal's banks have record deposits and the cheapest loans in years, but borrowers are holding back
Lending rates have roughly halved since 2023 and deposits are growing twice as fast as credit. The central bank is betting on 11% loan growth as the World Bank cuts its forecast after the Rasuwa flood.
- Economy
Nepal's workers sent home more in one month than the state invested in a year
Remittances reached Rs 2.36 trillion ($16.19bn) in 2025/26, more than the national budget, while capital spending fell below half its target and private credit stayed weak.
- Leaders · Leaders · Next Generation
Akshay Golyan takes the chair at one of Nepal's biggest exporters
The 37-year-old heir now runs a group behind close to a tenth of Nepal's exports, a freshly listed yarn maker priced at 141 times earnings and a 700 MW hydropower ambition.
- Leaders
Binod Chaudhary, Nepal's only billionaire, a year after the fire
The uprising burned his home and the election that followed took his seat, yet Forbes still values Nepal's only billionaire at $2.1bn and the new prime minister has invited him to talk investment.
- Companies · Rise, Fall, Rise
Bhat-Bhateni has reopened ten of its twelve burned sites in a year without cutting a job
The supermarket chain reported losses above Rs 11bn, about $71m, when its stores burned in the Gen Z uprising. A rebuild costing about Rs 15bn is nearly complete, with Damak due in December and Hetauda in January.
- Rise & Fall
Giri Bandhu Tea Estate: the Jhapa land swap Nepal's Supreme Court annulled, and what came after
A 1964 exemption let a Jhapa tea estate keep land far above Nepal's legal ceiling. The Supreme Court annulled a 2021 cabinet decision letting it swap that land, but its order to reclaim surplus land had not been carried out by May 2026.
- Rise & Fall
Nepal's oldest industrial house and the court cases facing its chairman, Shekhar Golchha
The Golchha family's roots go back to Nepal's first factory. Its chairman, a former FNCCI president, is now a defendant in insurance and money-laundering cases linked to Himalayan Reinsurance. He denies wrongdoing and is on bail.
- Rise & Fall
GB Rai, Gorkha Media and the cooperative savings still caught up in court
A parliamentary committee said cooperative savings reached GB Rai's television company. He remains abroad, the heaviest charges were dropped in May 2026, and the cooperative fraud charges have not been tested in court.
- Leaders · Leaders · Diaspora
Shesh Ghale and Jamuna Gurung slip to 150th on Australia's rich list
The couple behind the Melbourne Institute of Technology have made Australia's rich list for 18 straight years, but have slid from around 80th as their Kathmandu hotel, begun in 2014, finally nears opening.
- Leaders · Leaders · Rise
Upendra Mahato's road from Siraha to Moscow and back
He turned $600 into a business spanning Russian electronics, Belarusian machinery and Nepal's first private mobile network, then founded the diaspora association whose split and reunion he has watched from its edge.
