Nepal appoints new governor for country’s central bank

Nepal government appointed Dr Yuvraj Khatiwada as new governor of the country’s central bank, Friday.

The post of the governor in Nepal Rastra Bank was lying vacant for the last two months after the then governor Bijaya Nath Bhattarai retired.

The appointment was delayed for months after the two major ruling parties Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist and Leninist) staked their claim for the same post.

Amidst criticisms from various quarters that the country’s economy was heading towards wrong direction due to prolonged absence of the governor, senior leaders of the two parties engaged in a series of negotiations before arriving at an agreement on Friday to appoint the noted economist Dr Khatiwada in the post.

Dr Khatiwada was currently serving as Vice Chairman of National Planning Commission.

Born in August 1956, Dr Khatiwada obtained Ph.D. from Delhi School of Economics on monetary economics in 1993. Khatiwada spent a significant length of his career at the country’s central bank, where he had entered as an assistance research officer in 1983 and retired executive director in 2008.

Dr Khatiwada was also appointed member of National Planning Commission for nearly two years, starting from October 2002. He also served on United Nations Development Program as its Economic Advisor for Asia Pacific Region between January 2008 to May 2009.

- Asian Tribune -