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| Satya | Posted
on 15-Jun-03 02:48 AM
US Senator threatens to retract preferential bill Being weaker, poorer, land-locked and sandwitched between two regional powers we have to please everybody. The Kathmandu Post By Bhaskar Sharma KATHMANDU, June 13 Citing some of Nepals recent actions as being "against the US interests", the United States Senator Dianne Feinstein has threatened to retract a preferential trading bill that she had tabled in the Finance Committee of the US Senate. The bill sought to provide duty-and-quota-free market access to Nepali garments in the US. A highly placed source disclosed to The Kathmandu Post that Feinstein, in a letter sent to the Royal Nepalese Embassy in Washington recently, expressed grave concern over Nepals recent deportation of the eighteen Tibetans to China. The letter was promptly forwarded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) here in Kathmandu. An official at the MoFA admitted having received the letter. Besides the deportation issue, the long-standing payment row between Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) and Panda Energy International (PEI) has also influenced Feinsteins desire to revoke the bill, said the official. PEI, in consortium with others, has invested US$ 98 million in Nepals Bhote Koshi Project. The PEI had earlier threatened to use its political clout in the US government to block the passage of the bill through the Congress. Subsequently, some of the US Senators had recently gone as far as asking Nepal to settle NEAs payment row with PEI as a precondition to move ahead the bill. According to the MoFA source, though Feinstein has not set a deadline for retraction of the bill, it could come as early as next week. The latest development comes as a serious setback to Nepals fledging garment industry. Garment entrepreneurs for over two years had been demanding market access to the US on a par with the Caribbean and the Sub-Saharan African countries that are receiving such facilities since late 2000. Nepali garment entrepreneurs expressed concern over Feinsteins statement. "Everything seemed going well for Nepals garment industry. We were hoping that the bill would get through the Senate and the Congress. Now that seems almost impossible," said Kiran Saakha, President of Garment Association of Nepal (GAN). Entrepreneurs are now pressing the government, especially the MoFA, to immediately communicate with Feinstein to defer the bills removal from the Senate. Saakha alleged that there has been a lack of diplomatic and political follow-up for the clearance of the bill. The NEA-PEI controversy and Tibetans deportation is proving costly. "If action is not immediately taken to keep the bill afloat in the Senate, the garment sector will suffer a huge setback," added Saakha. The Nepali garments exported to the US without any preferential treatment are subjected to an approximate tariff level of 18 percent. Garment entrepreneurs estimate that free market access to the US could potentially lead to a huge surge in garment exports from Nepal. Garment exports can easily cross US$ 400 million, from US$ 106 million last year, say entrepreneurs. The garments industry in Nepal with around Rs 6 billion investment is entirely export oriented and accounts for 40 percent of the foreign exchange earnings through exports. The industry employs over 100,000 workers - half of them women - and sustains the livelihood of over 350,000 people. |
| ? | Posted
on 15-Jun-03 09:10 AM
Yes lady, I can understand that you're just being patriotic. Bravo! Not to mention the fact that everything has to be done under a 'due process' which the Americans have lost a long time ago. Bullies! |