KATHMANDU, Jan 22: In a series of pre-NDF (Nepal Development Forum) consultation meetings, experts today discussed the role of private sector in the Tenth Plan and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which the government is going to put as its main agenda in the upcoming NDF meet.

Most of the speakers expressed the views that weak implementation of policies and programmes related with ensuring greater participation of private sector has been a prime factor for less than expected outcomes.

They also stressed that government should be more serious to speed up current pace of privatization, which is one of the important processes to ensure greater private sector involvement.

"The main aim of the Tenth Plan to reduce poverty can only be achieved through creating more employment, which is only possible with the rapid development of private sector," they stressed.

Presenting a paper, Bhanu P Archarya, secretary at the ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies said that despite increasing role of private sector in industrial activities, it still needs to enhance capacity to cope with the rising competition in the global market.

He also mentioned that the narrow capital base, huge spread rate between the lending and deposit rates, heavy concentration of financial institutions on the urban areas are the main problems of the current financial sector reform.

He stressed on the need to initiate second financial sector reform process immediately, which should be concentrate on enhancing institutional capabilities of both the private and public sectors.

Dr Bimal P Koirala secretary at the Finance Ministry, presenting a paper said that boosting privatization has been essential to minimize soaring government financial burden. "It is an important part to expedite liberalization and a way to boost private capital in the industrial development," he observed.

However, he said that though the public sector reform is expensive, the government should think of initiating inexpensive reform in PEs to make it attractive to the private sector.

Commenting on the papers, Dr Shankar Sharma, Member of National Planning Commission, emphasized to correct weak implementation of polices to ensure greater participation of private sector. He also underlined the need to correct some contradiction on the regulations related with private sector and to reduce transaction cost by removing bureaucratic hassles.

Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada, Chairman of Management Association Nepal emphasized the need of prioritization of the privatization process to improve the outcomes. He also said that the mistakes witnessed in previous privatization process should be immediately corrected.

Jhala Nath Khanal, Leader of main opposition CPN-UML said that most of the government policies have failed to incorporate the changes being seen in the global era. "Lack of effective vision of development is the main cause poor performance of the private sector," he said.

Binod Bahadur Shrestha, second vice-president of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry expressed his dissatisfaction over the recent government decisions on which private sector were not properly consulted.

He urged the government to improve transparency, implementation records and to stop frequent changes in the rules and regulations to encourage the private sector.