Weekly Summary
Across the week, Nepal advanced party and governance agendas alongside education and trade updates, including the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s leadership push at its first general convention in Chitwan and Rabi Lamichhane’s unopposed election as RSP President, while Prime Minister Balendra Shah emphasized an “express train” approach to implementation and clarified Nepal’s no third-party mediation stance in the India border dispute. Accountability and legal developments intensified, with the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority widening its e-passport procurement probe including Arzu Rana Deuba, the Supreme Court-related outcome in the Vinod Shah murder case sentencing six to life imprisonment, and ongoing anti-money laundering scrutiny over Bishnu Paudel’s detention and transfer to Kathmandu for investigation. Economic and infrastructure themes ranged from improved education outcomes in Class 12 results released in 40 days and export growth alongside continued FATF grey-list pressure to fiscal and oversight disputes such as Gandaki lawmakers’ allegations of NPR 35 crore wasted on khada purchases and NHRC calls for better follow-through on access to justice for torture survivors.
Forex remained relatively stable over the week: USD/NPR moved within 151.22-151.88 (0.08% net change), starting at NPR 151.22 on Jun 21 and ending at NPR 151.34 on Jun 28; other major pairs traded in narrow ranges (CAD 106.67-107.07, AUD 104.44-106.27, GBP 199.73-200.93, JPY 9.36-9.40). Local fine gold showed a downtrend of NPR -4,900 per tola, ending at NPR 283,800; international gold closed near NPR 231,742 per tola; local silver remained downtrend around NPR 4,325; international silver closed near NPR 3,343.
