Interview

Nepal has underestimated the role of the private sector


Maris Sangiampongsa, the Thai ambassador to Nepal for the last two years has recently been appointed as the Thai ambassador to Australia. Unlike his predecessors, he was very active in the open in taking Thai-Nepal relations to newer heights. As a staunch believer in private sector-led growth of economies, he took a delegation of Nepali businessmen to Thailand in 2010. He has particularly contributed in commercial growth of Nepali poultry farming by introducing multi layer farming schemes that had already have proved successful in Thailand. In an interview with Sujan Tiwari of The Corporate, he shared some comments about Nepal-Thailand relation. Excerpts:

Maris Sangiampongsa
Thai ambassador to Nepal


You have been recently named Thai ambassador to Australia. What is your experience of serving as Thai ambassador to Nepal?

I was in Nepal for 2 years and now I have completed my duty as the ambassador of Thailand here. During my stay, I really loved the country and the people. Thailand and Nepal share the same cultural values. I will miss the country, the people and especially the hospitality I was offered here from the very first day of my arrival. Within a couple of weeks, I realized that this country isn’t poor at all. There are a lot of opportunities that Nepal can offer to the entire world.

Nepal and Thailand have more than fi ve decades old diplomatic relationship. But our economic cooperation has not been that noteworthy. Why?

Thailand and Nepal established diplomatic relations more than 50 years ago. At the beginning of this relation, we focused on the technical assistance and we provided a lot of scholarships to the government of Nepal. But when I arrived here, I felt a need for a paradigm shift, a policy shift. I thought of building a relation of the private sector of the two countries, as I believe that is the only driving force for economic prosperity is the private sector. Thailand has come this far only because of the private sector. That’s why I focused my policies towards the private sector of Nepal. All the functions in the country should go together. Without politics, of course we cannot move the country forward. But if you place maximum weight only on politics, then you will leave the economic activities behind. And when people are hungry, they won’t listen to anything. Politics alone cannot achieve what people aspire. Politics can maintain the balance of power, but the real engine of growth for a country is the private sector. Bureaucracy has to go hand in hand with politics. In Thailand, we have achieved success through this model. I thought of making use of this model to benefit Nepal as well.

In 2010, you took a big delegation of Nepali businessmen to Thailand. What has been the progress in that initiative so far?

In the very near future, the role of government and bureaucrats will be very less, but the role of private sector and NGOs will increase. The private sector has to be strengthened for that. I had a lot of projects to encourage Nepali private sector by working closely with the Thai private sector. So, I took the members of FNCCI to Thailand. They met with the Thai private sector and learned a lot from them. As a result of that trip, Index, the biggest furniture company is coming to Nepal. Rhino, a brand of Thai energy drink is also coming here. It is the product of one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies of Thailand. If things go well, in the future we can call the company to manufacture medicine from the herbs available in Nepal.

From your experience here, what are the areas in which Nepal has potential?

Nepal has enormous assets. Nepal has the second largest water resource of the world, but still there is not adequate water supply. Nepal is the second richest country in terms of hydropower, but there is massive power outage which is totally unacceptable. As we approach the year 2025 or 2030, the world will be hit by three crises. The first shortage to hit the world will be water shortage. Second is the energy and third is food. We all know Nepal has enormous water resource and hydropower generating potential. Regarding food, some may argue that there can’t be enough production due to difficult terrain. But it is not true. Nepal has an elevation of 100 meters to 8848 meters above sea level. Thus, you have all kinds of ecosystems. Nepal also has a wide range of temperature, from 40 to minus 40 degree Celsius. In fact, Nepal can grow everything that the world can. No country in the world has such a wide range of features. Nepal also has enormous possibility for tourism. There are only 14 mountains peaks higher than 8000 meters in the world. And ten of them are in Nepal. The highest peak in Thailand is only 2500 meters high and we have 16 million foreign tourists every year.

Japan has only one mountain, Mount Fuji, and that is only 3700 meters. And Mount Fuji alone makes enormous amount of money through tourists. These 10 peaks of Nepal should have been able to generate an enormous amount of money. Nepal also has three meccas. Lumbini, the birth place of Lord Buddha is the first one I consider. Once in their life time, every Buddhist around the world wants to come to Nepal to pay homage to Buddha. If only 10 per cent of them come here, it will easily be 50 million Buddhists. If Nepal can attract the Buddhists around the world, there will be an enormous number of foreign tourists here. The second mecca is Janakpur, the place where Ram and Sita got married. It is more than 10,000 year old history. If you can attract 10 per cent of the Hindu population, there will be more than 90 million tourists. The third mecca is Pashupatinath. All these places have the potential to attract a huge number of tourists. If Nepal can combine and manage all these assets, in the year 2025, Nepal can be one of the richest countries in the world.

What is your suggestion to improve the Nepali economy?

When I had discussions with some of the Nepali politicians, they could talk only about two things, constitution and the peace process. Even if tomorrow you draft an excellent constitution and the peace process is completed, what are the people going to eat? I am not saying that politics is not important, politics and economic activities have to go together, otherwise sustainable development cannot be achieved. I was in Germany before I was transferred to Nepal. If tomorrow, the entire German cabinet is dissolved, the country will hardly be affected. But if BMW, Mercedes and Siemens go down, the country will collapse. This is because all the development and prosperity is brought by the private sector.

Nepal has underestimated the role of the private sector. These days, the private sector has a strong say in the foreign policies. A lot of policies are made for the convenience of the private sector. Nepal has to adopt that. The world is moving fast, and if you move slowly, you are moving backwards. You cannot wait for the future; you have to move ahead of the future. If the politics, the private sector and the participation of the people go hand in hand, sustainable development can definitely be achieved.

In the past, you also talked about launching special projects in Lumbini and Janakpur. How far have these projects moved ahead?

We constructed a walkway around the Mayadevi temple in Lumbini. Before that, it was hard to move around in rainy season We constructed it with the fund raised by Thai people. We raised only one Bhat from each Thai, which is around 65 million Bhat. We raised 50 million Bhats from that. We have only finished the first phase of the construction. In the second phase, statue of baby Buddha, more infrastructures and an information centre will also be constructed. And it is a gift offered by the Thai people to Nepali people. There will be more projects in future with Thai assistance.

What are the areas where Nepal and Thailand can work together for mutual benefit?

We can cooperate in areas such as tourism, hydropower, energy, trading, hospitality business, souvenirs from Nepal, agricultural products, health, banking sector and many others.