Despite the ballooning trade deficit every year, Nepal has registered trade surplus with 36 countries by the end of the first two months of the current fiscal year, according to statistics of the Department of Customs. The number represents around 25 percent of the total countries with which Nepal has trade relations.

This statistics, however, does not hold much significance as monetary value of the trade surplus is pretty low. According to the Department, Nepal has trade deficit with 107 countries out of 143 countries with which its has trade relations by the end of the first two months of this

fiscal year. 

In the current fiscal year, Nepal has trade surplus with Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Sudan, Somalia and the Maldives, among others. But the trade volume with those countries is relatively tiny and the majority of items exported to those countries are handicrafts and produce of small and cottage industries.

In the last fiscal year, Nepal had trade relations with 186 countries and it registered surplus with 42 countries. The statistics shows Nepal had trade deficit with 144 countries during that period. Similarly, Nepal posted surplus with 30 countries out the total of 180 countries with which it had exchanged trading in the fiscal year 2014-15. 

When the volume of trade deficit is swelling every year, having surplus with larger number of countries is insignificant, according to the economists.  

There is a massive import of daily essentials as well as luxury goods from India and China, ballooning Nepal’s trade deficit. During the last fiscal year, Nepal’s trade deficit reached a whopping Rs 703 billion.

Nepal has the largest trade deficit with India at Rs 91.40 billion within the first two months of the current fiscal year. The imports from India during the period stood at Rs98.69 billion against the exports worth Rs7.29 billion. China followed a distant second with a deficit of Rs20.52 billion in the same period, according to the Department.