| ashu |
Posted
on 18-Feb-03 10:49 PM
Just out of curiosity: Has anyone else done a background check on J.H.Collins & Associates?
I know someone who did (unfortunately, he passed away in 2001), and would
be interested in re-reading what the financial world has to say about J.H.Collins
& Associates.
The sparse bits of info, provided by the organisers of the the talk program, tell us
that Collins & Associates have been working since 1991 "to attract international
financial services companies to Nepal."
That's 12 years of efforts (with no perceptible return), an awfully long-time in the fluid world of high-finance and, it's fair to ask now: So far, which financial service company have J.H.Collins & Associates attracted to Nepal?
In the heyday of Krishna Prasad "I-will-make-Nepal-Singapore" Bhattarai, Collins et al did manage to make the then Finance Minister Ram Saran Mahat to talk about opening up just such an international center in the 1996 (?) budget speech.
What happened after that?
Until last year, a good friend of Collins & Associates, Dr. Narayan Khadka was the
VC of the National Planning Commission. Even then, this whole proposal seems not to
have been picked up in Nepal.
Why?
A few knowledgeable senior Nepali bankers I have spoken to -- informally -- have little clue as to how this whole thing is going to work, IF it is going to work at all, in Nepal. Nepali corporate lawyers, even those who have been to America to study the operations of just such a proposal, express an ambivalence about this whole idea.
I raise these concerns here publicly -- to sharpen the debate, and to add to the substance of discussion, and would be happy to be corrected by those who know
more.
Perhaps Collins & Associates will care to answer these and other questions when
they talk, yet again, of making Nepal Switzerland of Asia.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
|
