Nepal Infrastructure 
KATHMANDU: The 4th edition of the Infrastructure Conference is going to be held in Kathmandu on 8th-9th September. The two-day event with the slogan ‘Infrastructure for Growth’ will be jointly organized by the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) and the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba is scheduled to inaugurate the conference. CNI president Vishnu Kumar Agarwal said the biennial conference is going to be organized with the aim of attracting private investment in the infrastructure sector. The conference has given top priority to discussing the development of green infrastructure to promote environment-friendly investment as the world is witnessing the deepening impact of climate change. “We need big infrastructure projects for economic prosperity and such projects need huge investment.
We believe that the conference will also provide an opportunity to arrange investment in such transformational projects,” said Agarwal. Agarwal told the press that the major problems of infrastructures including energy, transport, urban development, drinking water, and sanitation were identified and efforts will be made to explore solutions to such paint points. “The conferences will play a role in attracting private investment. Therefore, we will take the opportunity to hear the experiences of experts on how other countries are managing investment while developing infrastructure projects,” added Agarwal. Due to the lack of capital in the world and rising interest rates, additional challenges have been added to mobilize resources for the development of the infrastructure sector, so the conference will also discuss investment in new financial frameworks by taking local and international investors into confidence.
Birendra Pandey, Vice President of the CNI said that the government’s policies and programs for the development of the infrastructure sector will be discussed extensively at the conference. The conference will strongly raise the issue of how Nepal can benefit from regional connectivity. According to Pandey, the conference will also discuss how the development of the infrastructure sector can be moved forward amid the Russia-Ukraine war and the Covid-19 pandemic. Ashish Garg, chairman of the CNI’s Infrastructure Committee, said the upcoming infrastructure conference is also going to promote private sector investment in all areas of infrastructure.
The CNI informed the press that the chief ministers of all seven provinces and the mayors of the metropolitan cities are among those participating in the event which is bringing together more than 600 representatives from 25 countries. The CNI has already organized such events in 2014, 2017, and 2019.
