Weekly Summary
Across the week, Nepal’s budget cycle and governance implementation took center stage as provinces rolled out FY 2083/84 budgets and the House of Representatives advanced the Appropriation Bill while debating four ordinances. In parallel, Kathmandu’s mobility and infrastructure management focus intensified with traffic enforcement and AI-enabled signal upgrades and the government’s move to merge infrastructure functions under a consolidated ministry reform. Accountability efforts escalated with arrests and probes including the CIAA arrest of Tirtharaj Aryal and the widening of the e-passport procurement probe to include Arzu Rana Deuba, while Minister Geeta Chaudhary set up a taskforce to investigate agriculture and livestock grant misuse.
Forex remained relatively stable over the week: USD/NPR moved within 151.22-152.48 (0.83% net change), starting at NPR 152.48 on Jun 14 and ending at NPR 151.22 on Jun 21; other major pairs traded in narrow ranges (CAD 106.89-109.00, AUD 105.96-107.44, GBP 199.95-204.44, JPY 9.38-9.52). Local fine gold showed a downtrend of NPR -10,900 per tola, ending at NPR 287,300; international gold closed near NPR 235,576 per tola; local silver remained downtrend around NPR 4,690; international silver closed near NPR 3,672.
