Finance Minister Honorable Barshaman Pun held a meeting today with Vice Presidents of the World Bank Martin Raiser and Akihiko Nishio at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The discussions in the meeting were focused on increasing the spending of World Bank funded projects and completion of the projects in time. The World Bank officials praised Nepal’s earthquake reconstruction, home grown GRID approach to development and community forestry. These development achievements will be showcased during the IDA 21 meeting to be held in Nepal in June this year. Also today, he had a meeting with IMF Director Krishna Srinivasan during which he discussed extended credit facility and possible resilience and sustainability facility.
The Minister had meeting with CEO of the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Scott Nathan today. The meeting was focused on increasing DFC’s investment in Nepal. DFC has already invested USD 273 million in Nepal and wishes to further increase the investment.
Similarly, the Minister had a meeting with CEO of the MCC Alice Albright at the Embassy. Both sides discussed the progress made on implementing the compact projects, particularly focusing on expediting the transmission line.
Also today, the Honorable Finance Minister joined a high level roundtable on the Climate Development Nexus at the World Bank. Addressing the round table, he stressed on finding solutions to climate change impacts by strengthening institutional capacity and building the mechanism to ensure sustainability and resilience.
Minister Pun will leave Washington, D.C. for Kathmandu tomorrow morning.
