Located between giant economies, Nepal has remained poor for centuries
Kathmandu, July 2.─ Switzerland has a highly specialised export economy consisting of banking, finance and tourism. Its neutrality is known globally. The two greatest features of Swiss foreign policy are neutrality and trade. Following this guideline, Switzerland developed rapidly, and today it is the most innovative European power with a high GDP and per capita income. Switzerland’s GDP is $664.7 billion and its population is 8.2 million (Nepal’s GDP is $20.8 billion and the population is 28.5 million). It has an area of 41,285 square kilometres, which is about two-thirds the size of Nepal. According to the Global Innovation Index 2016 developed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, Switzerland tops the list of the most innovative countries followed by Sweden and United Kingdom.
How Switzerland achieved such enormous economic growth is a topic of debate and there is no perfect answer. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson famously mentioned in their book Why Nations Fail that economic and political institutions need to be inclusive, but it is not definitive. Switzerland’s economic prosperity was inherited in the historical evolution process, and it is also due to political stability, direct democracy and neutrality. Nepal has just started discussing inclusiveness and participatory democracy.
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