Government of Nepal (GoN) has decided to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in the primary agriculture production with certain conditions by publishing a notice on Nepal Gazette dated 04 January 2021 (20 Poush2077) exercising the power conferred by Section 50 of Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act (FITTA), 2075 (2019 AD). As per the notification, foreign direct investment in Nepal is allowed in the following sectors –

Cybersecurity incident is a security event that compromises the integrity, confidentiality, and /or availability of an information asset whereas a breach is an incident that results in confirmed disclosure of data to an unauthorized party. In the world, there have been numerous cybersecurity violation incidents that are regularly on news portals.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) severely impacts traditional economic patterns, both in macro-economics and micro-economics. This will affect the traditional tax-base to the nation and liquidate the tax paying capacity of the existing taxpayers. Therefore, if we cannot control the effect of pandemic, we need to restructure the economic module as well as invention of new tax-base.

Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of information are critical to any organization for the on-going functions and good governance. It provides the guiding principles and responsibilities necessary to safeguard the security of the organization’s information systems. Information systems of an organization must be secure at any cost and good policy helps to ensure this. Companies should be prepared for any type of worst situations like severe cyber-attacks, pandemics and natural hazards.

It may be too early to comment upon the exact taxation approach, however, the possibility cannot be ruled out that appropriate taxation on Digital Economy may lead to a wider tax base and a new source of Tax Avenue for the government.

In 2019, first time in history more than half of the global population is using the internet. This consists of about 3.9 billion people who are using online services worldwide. This means an exponential increase in personal, business and government data flowing across the internet and between devices. As exposure of data is increasing, this leads to revelation of ever-widening range of cyber threats. Not long ago, a breach that compromised the data of a few thousand people would have been big news. Now, breaches that affect hundreds of millions or even billions of people are common. This increase in volume of incidents makes governments and organizations take cyber security too serious than ever before.

Non- Resident Nepali (NRN) is a foreign citizen of Nepalese origin or a Nepalese citizen residing abroad. “Foreign citizen of Nepalese origin” means a person who him/herself or whose father, mother, grandfather or grandmother was a citizen of Nepal at any time and has subsequently acquired the citizenship of any other foreign country other than a member country of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC).

Fraud is defined as “A knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment.” (Black’s Law Dictionary)

The practice of NFRS implementation has been started in Nepal just few years back. Currently, all the listed companies are required to prepare NFRS complied financial statements. NFRS for SMEs will be applicable from financial year 2019-20, unless some relaxation is given by the concerned authorities.

The government has set a target of 7% economic growth in the current fiscal year 2020/21. The Central Bank of Nepal, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), has formulated the Monetary Policy in line with achievement of such economic growth.