The government has set an ambitious goal of achieving 8% economic growth and 29.8% revenue growth target for the fiscal year 2018/19 beginning mid-July.
The outlined policy agenda is extensive and demanding, requiring consensus-building, persistence, and strong ownership for implementation.
Except for a few episodes of growth spurts, economic growth has largely been low yet volatile in Nepal, mostly stagnating below 5%.
Achieving a higher growth rate in FY2018 would require stronger factors than in FY2017. However, this is an unlikely scenario.
The time has come to stabilize the recurrent budget at this level and then start culling unproductive, repetitive and zombie projects.