Economic Freedom of the World Report 2012

Launch ofEconomic Freedom of the World Report 2012

Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation, in collaboration with FNCCI (Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce) and SEJON (Society of Economic Journalists – Nepal) organized the release of “Economic Freedom of the World Report, 2012”, on the premises of FNCCI on the 19th of  September, 2012.The annual peer-reviewed Economic Freedom of the World report is produced by the Fraser InstituteCanada’s leading public policy think-tank, in cooperation with independent institutes in 80 nations and territories, including Samriddhi, The Prosperity Foundation from Nepal.

The two-hour long program included the likes of senior economist Dr. Bhola Natha Chalise who provided his insights on how size of the government was one of the  key areas for the economic freedom to be understood. He focused on the need to have a limited but effective and efficient role of the government unlike the case of Nepal where government is found of have unlimited size but negligible effectiveness. Dr. Chiranjibi Nepal shed light that Nepal ranked 128th in this regard in the report, which was not at all a sign of free economy. He shared how he found property rights to be the dividing element between whether people prosper or fall under poverty.

Mr. Purushottam Ojha, former secretary of Ministry of Industry, talked on how here was a need to regulate these elements or else cartels, black-markets, politicized trade unions and corrupt market practices would take away the possibilities of economic freedom. Other speakers included Dr. Hemant Dabadi, Director General, FNCCI and Mr. Bhaskar Raj Rajkarnikar, Senior Vice President, FNCCI. Prateek Pradhan, Editor-in-cheif, Karobar Daily acted as the event moderator.

Nepal’s score and rank in 5 key areas of economic freedom (from 1 to 10, where a higher value indicates a higher level of economic freedom and a higher ranking) are as follows:

  • Size of government: improved from 6.10 to 8.34
  • Legal structures and security of property rights: decreased from 3.9 to 3.85
  • Access to sound money: improved from 6.10 to 6.26
  • Freedom to trade internationally: improved from 5.40 to 6.74
  • Regulation of credit, labour and business: increased from 6.0 to 6.47

The link to its press coverage can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzR1r3q0UhU

The full report can be found at: www.freetheworld.com