Who should be held responsible for the INR shortfall? asked Opposition Leader (OL) Tshering Tobgay to the finance minister at the Q&A session in the National Assembly (NA). The OL said in the last session “When I said there is a problem, the government denied it”. Today, apart from selling …

Tax hike on vehicles, fuel, alcohol, furniture, meat, electronics and textile proposed in Tax Bill As part of the fiscal measures to curb the Indian Rupee (INR) shortfall and enhance Bhutan’s balance of payments with India, the government has proposed to increase taxes on imports of non- essential items. Introducing …

 Coinciding with the final year of the current elected government, the national budget for financial year (FY) 2012-13 which is also the final budget of the 10th five year plan was presented by finance minister Wangdi Norbu to the National Assembly (NA) yesterday. The total projected budget is estimated to …

The new service centre, BHSL once operational will cater to all hydropower projects in the country and beyond Bhutan will gradually open-up partnership and investment doors to other international companies. Earlier this month, Alstom and Druk Green Power Corporation (DGPC) announced that they will establish a state-of-the-art hydropower service centre, …

Media houses’ priority number one is sustainability, nevertheless BMF, JAB and DoIM will work toward effective human resource development in media Lack of professional and technical capacity in Bhutanese media proved to be the key findings of the media baseline study which was launched during the media stakeholder meeting earlier …

The Journalist Association of Bhutan (JAB) has moved up a notch to achieve its goals after signing a MoU with department of information and media (DOIM), last Thursday. This comes as a result of JAB’s proposal to both DOIM and BMF for assistance in establishing its office and a press …

The Indian Ambassador Pavan K Varma, on behalf of the Government of India (GoI) handed over to Finance Minister Wangdi Norbu INR 2.5bn meant for the ongoing 10th plan on June 6 along with INR 1.11bn as excise duty refund for goods imported during the year 2009. Earlier this week, …

The Columbia University team researching MoIC’s draft RTI Bill says RTI will benefit Bhutan, incur low cost of implementation and will be easier to have sooner than later   A five member team comprising of students from Columbia University (CU), working under Professor Annya  Schiffrin in New York is now …

A new media scenario is likely to unfold soon in the country with the implementation of the long overdue ‘government advertising guidelines’ (GAG). Secretary of the ministry of information and communications (MoIC), Dasho Kinley Dorji who held a presentation of GAG to the committee of secretaries earlier this month said, …

The Nobel laureate said that Bhutan’s USD reserves is too high with low yields creating more debt through rupee borrowings and that government deposits in financial institutions fuels credit growth Noble laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz pointed out weaknesses in Bhutan’s monetary (banking and financial regulation) and fiscal (government expenditure and …