The Second Nepal Infrastructure Summit hosted by the Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) facilitated discourse on the theme “Private Sector as indispensable Partner” for infrastructure development. The primary objective of the summit was to attract large scale private investment in areas of Nepal’s core needs and strengths; forge stronger networks and alliances in the region for seamless connectivity; and raise awareness on why investment in infrastructure needs an urgent push in the country.

The summit focused on the strategic vision of the infrastructure, value proposition, competitiveness, policy particularly on land acquisition and environmental clearance; and regulatory enablers and business environment.  CNI in collaboration with Idea Studio will collect various infrastructure ideas from different sectors of the communities to come up with a creative and an innovative INFRASTRUCTURE (transportation, irrigation, energy, housing, digital, etc) IDEAs to solve the existing epic infrastructure deficit and address to the possible future need for our country’s development.

The Summit provided a platform for exchange of relevant experience in selected topics including:

  1. Infrastructure: The Big Picture
  2. Barriers and Constraints in attracting Private and Public Investment
  3. Expediting Public Private Partnership (PPP)
  4. Financing Resilient Infrastructure
  5. Successful PPP Model: Global and regional Perspective

Speakers and participants at the Nepal Investment Summit 2014 confirmed that Nepal desperately needs to upgrade its infrastructure and institutions that support infrastructure development and investment. They identified the need for:

  • Need to move the PPP model forward with the act, the PPP center, the needed regulations and human capacity in place. There is need to have a priority list of projects to be built under PPP as well. These should be vetted with clear roles for the public and private sectors.
  • Build strategic vision owned by all major political parties for infrastructure development and implement the vision through the national annual budget
  • Administrative set up needs to become more investor friendly and internalize that profit is the incentive that drives investments. There is a need to “streamline” fragmented laws, regulations, by-laws, institutions, and investments in infrastructure.
  • Establish a mechanism for regional cooperation with all the neighbors on infrastructure projects including benefit sharing.