The government has initiated the process to do a sovereign credit rating of the country, which had been halted for the past three years, just ahead of the Nepal Investment Summit that is scheduled to kick off on Sunday.

The government took the initiative with a view to present the country's realistic economic picture to international investors who are interested to invest in Nepal. Foreign investors take sovereign credit rating as a basic reference before making investment in a new country.

The government has also signed an agreement with UK Aid for the technical support and has selected Standard Chartered Bank for the process.

Earlier, the process was halted as economic indicators were not positive due to the Covid pandemic.

International investors who attended the investment summit three years ago had suggested doing the rating.

On Friday, the finance ministry convened a workshop aimed at capacity building of the agencies concerned on sovereign credit rating with stakeholders.

Finance Minister Barshaman Pun, Revenue Secretary Ram Prasad Ghimire and senior officials from the central bank and other agencies attended the event.

"Once the credit rating is done, investors from across the world can see Nepal's financial face in the same document," Minister Pun said at the workshop. "Then, we don't need to explain facts and figures in each and every international event we attend."

He said Nepal needs international investment as its own domestic resources aren't sufficient to carry out development activities as per the need of the day.

"As we plan to graduate from the least developed country status, we should maintain over 7 percent economic growth and for that we need huge foreign investment," Pun said. "For that, sovereign credit rating is necessary."