Economy
Kathmandu’s trade is an ancient profession that flourished along an offshoot of the Silk Road linking India and Tibet. From centuries past, Lhasa Newar merchants of Kathmandu have conducted trade across the Himalaya and contributed to spreading art styles and Buddhism across Central Asia. Other traditional occupations are farming, metal casting, woodcarving, painting, weaving and pottery. Kathmandu is famous for trading Nepalese Lokta paper, a paper made from Lokta (Daphne bhoula or Daphne papyracea) and Pashmina shawls which are very beautiful, light and warm and are used by women in Kathmandu valley to survive the cold winters.
Kathmandu is the most important industrial and commercial centre in Nepal, serving as the headquarters of most companies, banks, and organizations. The major economic hubs are the New Road, Durbar Marg, Ason, and Putalisadak.
The city's economic output is worth more than NRs. 170 billion per year. Kathmandu exports handicrafts, artworks, garments, carpets, pashmina, paper etc. and trade accounts for 21% of its finances. Manufacturing comes next in importance and accounts for 19% of the revenue that Kathmandu generates with garments and woolen carpets being the most notable manufacturers.
The top five countries importing Nepali handicrafts are the United States (Rs. 223 million), Germany (Rs. 87 million), Japan (Rs. 74 million), the UK (Rs. 69 million), and Canada (Rs. 51 million).
Other money making sectors in Kathmandu include agriculture (9%), education (6%), transport (6%), and hotels and restaurants (5%). Although some of Nepal's wealthiest citizens live in Kathmandu, much of the city is living in poverty with a per capita income of just US $400 (World Bank, 2008).
Read more about this topic: Kathmandu Metropolitan City
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)