Growth rates to be published quarterly

KATHMANDU, JUN 15 -

The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) plans to estimate the growth rate of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on a quarterly basis breaking the current tradition of doing it annually. It said that the report on the GDP would incorporate all the sectors and also provide clear figures of sector-wise contributions to the GDP. This is help in monitoring the business cycle of all the sectors, it added.

“As economic activities change seasonally, the quarterly estimate of the GDP will help in reviewing the economic activities,” said CBS director Jishnu Mohan Bhattarai. “The initiative is expected to guide the government in terms of finding out priority sectors for making investment and also reviewing the investments made.”

The CBS plans to make public the first quarterly report in the next three weeks. “We are at the final stages of preparation for the maiden publication,” said Bhattarai. The CBS has been publishing annual national account estimates which give the rate of economic growth of the country. It has estimated that the country’s economy will grow by 3.56 percent this fiscal. However, Bhattarai said the new plan is different from the national account estimate. He said that the CBS would publish quarterly reports within 35-45 days of the end of the quarter.  

Source: The Kathmandu Post