In the first two months of fiscal year 2026/27, from mid-July to mid-September, foreign investors pledged Rs 11.12 billion across 328 projects in Nepal. That is 66.39% less than the Rs 33.09 billion committed in the same period a year earlier, according to Department of Industry data reported by CEO Tab. Read that pair of numbers twice. Nepal approved more projects than last year, 328 against 236, and received two-thirds less money.
The sector split shows where the money was promised, and where it was not. Tourism took the largest share at Rs 3.74 billion, about 34% of the total, spread across 70 enterprises. Services followed with Rs 3.30 billion, roughly 30%, for 26 enterprises. Energy drew Rs 2 billion, 18% of the total, for a single project. Manufacturing attracted Rs 1.23 billion, 11%, across 18 enterprises. Agriculture, the sector that dominated last year's tally, received a single pledge of Rs 20 million for one project.
The most striking number sits in the project counts. Information and communication technology, the ICT sector, accounted for 212 of the 328 approved enterprises, nearly 65% of the pipeline, but committed only Rs 816.91 million, barely 7% of the total value. The approvals are broad and the tickets are small. The average commitment per project works out to roughly Rs 34 million this year, against about Rs 140 million last year. Nearly all of the 328 approved industries, 323 of them, are small-scale; only two are medium and three are large. Nepal's FDI pipeline has become a long queue of small cheques.
It would be wrong to read this as a failure of process. Of the 328 projects, 322 were cleared through the automatic approval route, worth Rs 9.75 billion, with six more taking the regular route for Rs 1.38 billion. The department also approved share purchase and subscription agreements worth about Rs 823.2 million across 12 projects, plus eight technology transfer agreements. The front door for foreign capital is more open than it used to be. The capital walking through it simply got smaller.
Two caveats matter before drawing conclusions, and the first is the base. Last year's Rs 33.09 billion was itself an unusually hot reading. Commitments in the same two months of FY 2024/25 had been Rs 12.12 billion, and last year's spike nearly tripled that, driven in large part by a single Rs 21.6 billion agriculture pledge for nine projects. Two-month commitment figures are lumpy; one large ticket can swing the whole number. This year's Rs 11.12 billion also sits below the Rs 12.12 billion of two years ago, so the drop is not purely a base effect, but the sharpness of the 66% fall owes much to what it is measured against.
The second caveat is harder and more important: commitments are not inflows. A pledge is a statement of intent, and Nepal's record of converting intent into landed capital is thin. Nepal Rastra Bank survey data show the country has realized only about 29.6% of approved FDI over the three decades from 1995/96 to 2024/25, with time lags, projects that never start, and capital arriving in stages all contributing to the gap. The first month of this fiscal year illustrates the scale of it: actual FDI equity inflow in Shrawan was Rs 1.01 billion, up from Rs 691.48 million a year earlier, per NRB data reported by Fiscal Nepal. For the full FY 2024/25, actual FDI equity inflow was Rs 28.49 billion. The headlines track promises; the balance of payments tracks money.
And the balance of payments is carried by someone else entirely. In that same first month, remittance inflows grew 21.2% to Rs 215.05 billion, according to the Nepal Rastra Bank. One month of workers' earnings sent home was nearly nineteen times the two months of FDI commitments. The current account ran a surplus of Rs 94.59 billion for the month, the overall balance of payments was in surplus by Rs 90.34 billion, and foreign exchange reserves stood at nearly Rs 4 trillion. None of that was built by foreign investors. It was built by Nepalese working abroad.
Fair framing requires one distinction: remittances and FDI do different work. Remittances are household income, spent on consumption and imports; FDI is productive capital, meant to build plants, hotels, and dams. One cannot substitute for the other. But the capital-account contrast is real and uncomfortable. Nepal is exceptionally good at collecting its workers' earnings and consistently struggles to attract productive foreign capital at scale. Energy and manufacturing, the two sectors that build things, drew one project and Rs 1.23 billion respectively this year.
The open question is what the 328 approvals become. They are expected to create 3,447 jobs, a modest number against a labor market that sends roughly 40,000 people abroad for first-time work permits in a single month. India tops Nepal's FDI stock, China concentrates its stock in electricity, and Nepal keeps making approvals easier. The watching brief now is simple: pledged jobs against actual capital landed, quarter by quarter. Two months of promises tell us the pipeline is wide. They do not tell us it is deep.
This article is published for research and education purposes only. It is not investment advice, and nothing here should be read as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Figures cited reflect publicly reported information at the time of writing and may be revised as source data is updated.