The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Another 22 Bhutanese living abroad are also COVID-19 positive There are 21 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country as of now, with 14 female and 7 male patients. Of that, 5 patients have already recovered. Of the 16 COVID-19 patients in the country 15 patients have been placed in the …
Read More »How Local Community volunteers along the border are helping secure the border and their communities
Dzongkhags along the border shared how encouraging it is to see local communities coming forward to take up the responsibility in fighting COVID-19. They shared the communities are cooperative in following the recently implemented rules, such as the 7 pm shop closure rule, and also help in contributing vegetables and …
Read More »Health Minister says Jomotsangkha case had COVID-19 and developed specific antibodies to it but MoH still declares him to be negative and opens lockdown
For all purposes, the Jomotsangkha case is probably Bhutan’s first local or community transmission case, but the government is in an all out drive to deny this, even after the Health Minister, in a live press conference, confirmed that the patient has the COVID-19 virus. She even went further and …
Read More »COVID-19 Impact: Domestic Revenue to drop by Nu 10 bn in 2020-21 budget
Govt to slash recurrent expenditure by Nu 5 bn in 2020-21 budget except for pay and essential activities With COVID-19 impacting all sectors of the economy the forecasted domestic revenue for the 2020-21 budget has dropped from an initial one of Nu 43 bn in the pre-COVID-19 time to now …
Read More »Govt to decide soon on reopening schools but students will not be assessed on online learning: PM
The government has yet to decide on whether to reopen schools or keep them closed for sometime but the decision is expected to come soon within the next two weeks. The decision will take into account the COVID-19 epidemiology status in the country. Although the results of random tests are …
Read More »Bhutan short of 20,000 construction labourers and half of remaining 28,000 set to go back: COVID-19 Impact
Government coming up with Build Bhutan to get Bhutanese to become professionalized construction workers Lyonchhen Dr Lotay Tshering said that due to the COVID-19 crisis Bhutan currently has a construction labour shortage of nearly 20,000 labourers, but this shortage is only set to get even worse. “There is around 28,000 …
Read More »Druk Gyalpo’s Relief Kidu may be extended beyond three months
More than half the applicants are from tourism sectors but rest are from other impacted sectors Most applicants have their census in Trashigang, Samtse, Sarpang and Mongar The Druk Gyalpo Relief Kidu which saw its first disbursement of Nu 150 mn to 13,006 people on Thursday could well be extended …
Read More »Bhutanese stuck in Kolkata due to lack of airfare money
25-year-old Sonia Tamang, who is a resident of Motithang in Thimphu and currently working in a call center in Kolkata does not have enough funds for her airfare back to Bhutan as her company has not paid her salary for around a month and a half and it is currently …
Read More »Almost 5 bn in market cap wiped off Bhutan’s stock markets since 5th March 2020
One fall-out of the COVID-19 has been on Bhutan’s stock market which has seen a record market capitalization or cap of Nu 4.8 bn in value being wiped out since March 5 to April 30, 2020. The market cap or the total value of all the stocks on the stock …
Read More »19,216 NPL accounts to benefit from interest waiver
While there was a lot of appreciation for loan interest waivers on loans there was a segment of people unhappy with the Non Performing Loans before 29th February not getting the interest waiver though the principal payment had been deferred for all by three months. Their main argument was that …
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