Nepal suffers $18m loss per strike day

Nepal suffered 1.8 billion Nepalese currency (18 million U.S. dollars) per strike day and 27 billion Nepalese currency (270 million U.S. dollars) a year due to strikes and Nepal bandh between 2008 to 2013, a recent research conducted by the country's central bank revealed. The research report, "The Economic Cost of General Strikes in Nepal," says the repeated strikes in the poor Himalayan country claimed losses worth 117 billion Nepalese currency (1.7 billion U. S. dollars) during the period. "The lost output per year accounted for 1.4 percent of the annual gross output," said the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) report which is yet to be launched officially. "With such losses, general strikes decelerated annual GDP growth rates in a range between 0.6 percent and 2.2 percent during the study period." "The report estimates the direct economic cost of general strikes due to the stoppage of economic activities only. It however does not include the cost of spill-over effects of general strikes and the cost of violence," Min Bahadur Shrestha, executive director at the NRB's Investigation Division, told Xinhua by phone. Shrestha and Shashi Kant Chaudhary, assistant director of the NRB Investigation Division have led the research. The research found that the monthly inflation rate in Nepal jumped to over 9 percent as a result of two-day general strikes while a strike that lasted three or more days led to an inflation of more than 10 percent during the period. The report analyses the effect of general strikes on five macroeconomic variables including GDP growth rate, inflation, gross fixed capital formation, foreign direct investment and tourist arrivals. The report found that service and industry sectors suffered most from strikes and closures while the agriculture sector that contributes one-third of the country's GDP remained least affected. "Loss in GDP growth rate increases with the increase in the number of nationwide strike days," the report says, adding, "The highest number of nationwide general strikes and also the highest level of GDP loss have been recorded in 2010." Nepal saw 4,451 strikes during the period under survey, including 707 in 2008, 957 in 2009, 1,207 in 2010, 732 in 2011, 632 in 2012 and 218 in 2013.