Prime Minister Koirala urges business community to adopt ethical practices
KATHMANDU:
Prime Minister Sushil Koirala today urged the business community to promote ethical practices in business which would not only benefit the consumers but also support in promoting competition and attracting fresh investment.
“We need to promote competition to attract fresh investments and unethical businesses are a major hindering factor to this goal,” the prime minister said, adding, “They want to block new investments in their sectors by bribing government authorities or bar entrance of new comers by adopting unethical means.”
Inaugurating Nepal Responsible Business Summit 2014, which is being jointly organised by National Business Initiative (NBI), GIZ, Himalayan Climate Initiative, Kathmandu University School of Management, and School of Management Tribhuvan University, Prime Minister Koirala today stressed on peace and stability for creating investment-friendly environment in the country.
“If we continue to remain least developed by underutilising the opportunities, the future generations will not forgive us,” Koirala stated. “We should reap the benefit as our giant neighbours India and China are rapidly moving ahead towards development.”
Koirala also suggested the business community to adopt good governance in their respective businesses and urged them to reduce corruption practices. He also expressed hope that Nepal could be ranked as a non-corrupt country on the rating of Transparency International if business people discourage bribing and corruption and promote honest practices.
Speaking at the programme, German Ambassador to Nepal Matthias Meyer said that responsible business practices support in keeping strong relations with society and a good business should address the social and environmental concerns.
President of NBI, Padma Jyoti said that as the government has accepted private sector as an engine of economic growth, it should be a non-political engine. As per Jyoti, complex regulations and excessive politics over business community have been hindering factors for creating a level playing field and that has been obstructing fair business practices.
“It might take time to get results but we’ve started an initiative to promote ethical and responsible businesses,” said Jyoti.
In his keynote speech, Uday Gupta, managing director of Mahindra Steel, India said that rule and law only compel the businesspeople to abide where being monitored, but in ethics it would be done whether someone is looking or not. Gupta stated that businesses should be responsible towards society and the environment for their success.
Source: THT
