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Huawei tells Nepal's internet providers to sell AI computing, not just bandwidth
At a gathering for internet service providers in Kathmandu, the Chinese telecoms giant pitched GPU rental, AI models and home security services as the next source of revenue, and pointed to Nepal's electricity costs as an advantage.
Shilakshya and Forefront team up to cut the cost and delays of building a house with digital tools
A builder and a digital engineering firm have signed an agreement to bring building information modelling, virtual reality and LiDAR scanning to homes in Nepal, so owners can see their house before ground is broken.
Nepal floods choke Dashain goat supply as Kathmandu meat prices climb
Blocked highways, a closed Tibetan border route and a state trader sitting out the season have left Kathmandu's festival meat market short and pricier.
Buddha Air's Birendra Bahadur Basnet bets on rice despite a Rs 25m mill loss
The Buddha Air chairman believes machines, bank credit and a mill's guaranteed purchase can make the economics of a two-bigha farm work. As of October 2026, the experiment had lost money.
Budhi Gandaki flood: disaster chief credits SMS alerts as hydropower sites are hit
No deaths were confirmed after a flash flood tore through Gorkha on 11 October 2026, and officials credit text warnings. But bridges, river gauges and two hydropower sites were lost, and the cause is still unclear.
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.
Nepal clears two hydropower projects and targets 2028 for Arun-3
The Investment Board approved Rs 21.17bn (about $137m) of semi-reservoir schemes and pressed the two 900 MW giants to move, but approvals have rarely been Nepal's problem.
Unilever Nepal's profit falls 19.5% on input costs while Himalayan Distillery's rises 28%
Nepal's listed manufacturers ended 2082/83 with sharply different fortunes. Costs squeezed a soap maker, a distiller grew, and a cement maker held its profit as sales shrank.
Nepal grows prized coffee for Europe and Japan, but imports 29 times as much as it sells
Customs data show Rs 1.85bn of coffee imports against Rs 72m of exports in nine months. Most of the bill is instant coffee, while home-grown beans struggle on price.
Nepal's drugmakers run at a third of capacity, caught between cheap imports and capped prices
Domestic producers supply about half the country's medicines. Raw material costs have soared, the regulator has refused a price rise, and producers want imports of locally made drugs stopped.
Nepal's first road tunnel opens in phases, with tolls set to roughly match its running costs
The Rs 29bn Nagdhunga tunnel took 80 months to build against a 42-month contract. Only cars and small vans use it so far, toll-free, while heavier traffic waits for later phases.
16,400MW of hydropower waits for a buyer as Nepal moves to cancel idle licences
The state utility has not committed to buy power from 281 projects. A government panel wants 38 stalled schemes cancelled, and only projects of up to 10MW are being offered quick contracts.
Over a third of Nepal's 960MW solar tender has yet to break ground
Developers bid as low as Rs 4.99 a unit when the dollar cost Rs 135. With the dollar near Rs 154 and a licensing dispute over land, 346MW of projects is stuck.
A 400kV line begun in 2013 is about to be charged as ADB lines up private grid builders
The Hetauda-Dhalkebar link should raise east-west transfer capacity from about 300MW to 2,000MW. ADB will help the NEA tender a second 400kV line and battery storage to private investors.
Two railways to Kathmandu, from China and India, are still waiting on paperwork
China's feasibility study for the Kerung line was due in June, and India's Raxaul survey awaits approval in Delhi. Both routes would be mostly tunnels and bridges, and neither has a financing plan.
Freight trains reach Biratnagar as Nepal's only passenger railway keeps losing money
A direct container service from Kolkata opened a second rail gateway for Nepali importers in July. In Madhesh, the Jaynagar line inches towards Bardibas while its operator runs deficits.
Five years after the flood, Kathmandu's Melamchi water still runs on a temporary intake
Another monsoon flood cut Melamchi's supply to the capital in July. A permanent headworks is now targeted for 2029, while 28 court cases over the old contract remain open.
Nepal's power utility lifted sales by 18%, but currency losses cut its profit by 59%
The Nepal Electricity Authority's pre-tax profit fell to about Rs 5bn in 2025/26 as currency losses on its obligations nearly quadrupled, even though sales rose 18%.
Nepal's domestic airlines lost 540,000 passengers as fuel costs pushed up fares
Passenger numbers fell 12% in 2025/26 after jet fuel prices almost doubled and fares rose by up to 40%, leaving several carriers with negative balance sheets, their association says.
Nepal's motorcycle market reaches a four-year high, and four in five are assembled at home
Imports of motorcycles and scooters rose 30% last fiscal year to 277,291 units, most as kits for local plants, and the new year has started at a similar pace with electric scooters gaining.
Nepal Telecom's profit jumps 48% as it waits for 5G spectrum
The state operator earned Rs 8.86bn last year on modest revenue growth, while its plan for 5G in Kathmandu and Pokhara still depends on the regulator assigning frequencies.
Nepal's hotels can host four million visitors a year. About 1.2 million come
A year after the protest fires, most damaged hotels have reopened, but the deeper problem for owners is a room stock built for three times the tourists who actually arrive.
Nepal's central bank lets banks merge branches, but not dismiss the staff who run them
New rules allow banks to consolidate urban branches if they open rural ones, give customers 90 days' notice and transfer, not lay off, employees.
Nepal has 30m mobile banking users but only about 335,000 credit cards
Credit card lending grew 29% last year to Rs 8bn, yet remains a sliver of bank loans. A virtual card that works on QR codes is growing faster than plastic ever did.
Nepal's ATMs and card machines lose ground as QR payments reach 72m a month
Central bank data show QR payments up 77% in a year while ATM withdrawals, debit card use and card-terminal payments all fell. The country now has fewer cash machines than a year ago.
Nepal's Social Security Fund passes 3m contributors, most of them working abroad
Mandatory enrolment for migrant workers has turned a scheme built for formal employees into a Rs 116bn fund. Most payouts so far have gone on old-age claims.
Non-life insurers' profits fell 39% before the Bhotekoshi flood brought Rs 25.9bn in claims
Nepal's general insurers ended 2025/26 with sharply lower earnings. Then the August flood produced claims larger than a year's premiums at the most exposed firms.
Nepal's life insurers pass Rs 200bn in yearly premiums as new business grows by a quarter
Fourteen life insurers collected Rs 200bn in 2025/26, up 12.4%. First-year premiums, the best guide to new customers, grew twice as fast as the total.
Fixed-deposit rates in Nepal fall below inflation as savers drift to ordinary accounts
Banks now offer individuals about 4% on fixed deposits while prices rise by nearly 6%. Fixed deposits have shrunk from almost half of commercial bank deposits to about a third.
Nepal's banks lifted profits by 32% by setting aside less, not by lending more
Commercial banks earned Rs 69.8bn in 2025/26, but core interest income barely moved and bad loans kept rising. The gain came mostly from smaller provisions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nepal's electric car boom meets a new tax regime
Electric cars dominate new sales in a country that imports all its fuel. A value-based levy introduced in May may decide whether that lasts.
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.
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.
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.