The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Prime Minister’s Office shared it plans to improve the foreign reserves of the country.
One is mobilisation of additional grants of 9 billion from GoI and other donors. As per the 12th FYP plan projection, the grant mobilisation is only about Nu. 63 billion but as of today, it has touched Nu. 71.9 billion.
Another is mobilisation of highly concessional borrowing from multilateral development banks.
Third is designing special Green Bonds package to encourage foreign remittances and onshore investment with government backed securities.
Fourth is diversification of source of Hydro project investments.
The final one is that the government is also working on monetising carbon credits. It also recently approved at least 10 additional ferro silicon factories to leverage export and earn foreign currency. Many newer initiatives are also being planned.
The PMO said despite the depletion of foreign currency, people have not felt the impact as there has been no job or salary cuts.
The primary cause of depletion of foreign currency reserve is the import of vaccines, health equipment and medicines during the pandemic. Besides, essential food items to last at least three months were imported on a regular basis. These measures were critical to ensure that lives and livelihood of our people were safeguarded.
During this time, the government also had to commence debt servicing for Mangdechu Hydropower Project. This is in addition to the servicing of other debts.
Even as the imports increased and debt servicing continued, there was no inflow of foreign currency particularly due to the complete halt for two and half years of tourism, which is one of the main sources.
