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Course seven · two months

Economy of Nepal

Nepal Rastra Bank publishes about ninety tables of macroeconomic data every month, and almost nobody outside the central bank opens the file. This is 8 weeks on that release — GDP and the savings gap, inflation, foreign trade, remittances and reserves, money and credit, interest rates, government debt, and finally the chain that carries all of it into the share market.

Worked throughout on the Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation, eleven-month data of 2025/26 (to mid-June 2026). Every formula is applied to figures NRB actually published, so any calculation in the course can be checked against the source.

Taught by Sandeep Kumar Chaudhary — widely regarded as one of Nepal’s leading teachers of the Nepali economy, as well as of fundamental and technical analysis · free · physical and online · two months.

About the figures — read this first.

Real-sector figures in this release are preliminary estimates by the National Statistics Office and are revised, sometimes materially. Eleven-month figures are not annual figures, and Nepal’s fiscal year is heavily back-loaded, so the twelfth month is not one-twelfth of the story. Every threshold or policy setting is written [R] — regulation-dependent, verify against the current release and the Monetary Policy in force.

Every relationship taught here is a tendency measured over a few years in one small economy, not a law. Nothing in this course is investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Start at Week 1 →

8 weeks · 8 lessons · 1h 5m

Want the bank-level view of the same system? NRB Key Ratios reads the supervisory data institution by institution; this course reads the economy those institutions sit inside.

Module 1 · The real economy and prices

  • Week 01

    Week 1 — Reading Nepal's Macroeconomic Data

    What NRB publishes every month, the five families of indicators, the fiscal-year traps, and the savings gap that defines the economy.

  • Week 02

    Week 2 — Prices: CPI, Wholesale Prices and Wages

    How the index is built, why food and non-food inflation diverged sevenfold, and what a wholesale index tells you that a consumer index cannot.

Module 2 · The external sector

  • Week 03

    Week 3 — Foreign Trade: Exports, Imports and the Deficit

    A trade gap of 21 percent of GDP, and the single commodity that explains almost all of this year's 77.77 percent export growth.

  • Week 04

    Week 4 — Remittances, the Balance of Payments and Reserves

    How a country with a 21-percent-of-GDP trade deficit runs a current account surplus, and what that dependence costs.

Module 3 · Money and interest rates

  • Week 05

    Week 5 — Money and Banking: Aggregates, Deposits and Credit

    M0, M1, M2 and the money multiplier, and why in Nepal the money supply is largely determined outside the country.

  • Week 06

    Week 6 — Interest Rates and Monetary Operations

    Why Nepali rates collapsed after 2022/23, the deposit-rate inversion squeezing bank margins, and what sterilisation costs.

Module 4 · Government and markets

  • Week 07

    Week 7 — Government Finance: Revenue, Spending and Debt

    Revenue that rides the import bill, a capital budget halved in seven years, and the debt dynamics that stabilised the ratio.

  • Week 08

    Week 8 — From the Macro Data to NEPSE

    The transmission chain from a remittance dollar to a share price, and a twelve-number dashboard you can rebuild every month.

Questions people actually ask

Where does Nepal's macroeconomic data come from?
Nepal Rastra Bank publishes Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation every month at nrb.org.np — around ninety tables covering the real sector, prices, foreign trade, the balance of payments, money and banking, interest rates, government finance and the stock market, plus long historical annexes. It is free. This course is built on the eleven-month release for 2025/26.
How can Nepal run a trade deficit of 21% of GDP and still have a current account surplus?
Remittances. In the eleven months to mid-June 2026 Nepal's trade deficit was about Rs 1,397 billion while workers' remittances were about Rs 1,534 billion — roughly 23 percent of GDP and 6.2 times the value of all goods exports. Labour is Nepal's largest export; goods are a side business.
Why did Nepali interest rates fall so far after 2022/23?
Not because policy was eased to stimulate growth. Large balance of payments surpluses meant NRB bought foreign currency and issued rupees, so deposits grew about 12 percent while credit grew only about 8 percent. The excess liquidity pushed the 91-day treasury bill from 10.66 percent in 2021/22 to about 2.94 percent.
What is the difference between the CPI index level and the inflation rate?
The index level measures distance from the base year: an overall CPI of 109.42 against a 2023/24 base means the same basket costs 9.42 percent more than in the base year. The inflation rate measures change over twelve months, which was 2.72 percent. A falling inflation rate does not mean falling prices, only prices rising more slowly.
Why did Nepal's exports grow 77.77% in 2025/26?
Almost entirely one commodity. Soyabean oil exports went from about Rs 875 million to about Rs 93.5 billion, while crude soyabean oil imports rose from about Rs 13 billion to about Rs 94.8 billion. It is a re-export trade built on a tariff difference: the gross export value is large, the value added inside Nepal is the refining margin, and the net effect on the trade balance is close to zero.
How does the Nepali economy affect the NEPSE index?
Mainly through liquidity. Remittances create reserves, reserves create rupees, deposits grow faster than credit, interest rates fall, and the real return on cash drops — so savings look for a better home in land and shares. Market capitalisation reached 92 percent of GDP in 2020/21 when broad money grew five times faster than output, then halved as a share of GDP when liquidity reversed.
What is Nepal's public debt as a share of GDP?
About 40 percent at the eleven-month point of 2025/26 — roughly Rs 1,273 billion domestic and Rs 1,382 billion external. The ratio fell from 43.1 percent not because debt was repaid but because nominal GDP grew 6.5 percent while total debt was broadly flat.
Who teaches the Economy of Nepal course?
Sandeep Kumar Chaudhary, who also teaches banking, taxation, fundamental analysis and technical analysis on this site. The economy course runs as a two-month cohort, taught physically in Kathmandu and online, and it is free — the cohort and the full written version here alike, with no fee and no sign-up.

Source: Nepal Rastra Bank, Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation, eleven-month data of 2025/26 (to mid-June 2026). Published at nrb.org.np; figures are quoted here for teaching with attribution. Real-sector figures are preliminary estimates by the National Statistics Office. Week and lesson counts on this page are read from the course itself rather than written by hand, so they cannot drift.