On IMF's Macroeconomic Indicators Concerning Oil Imports to Nepal

IMF's Report Found Here: http://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Countries/ResRep/NPL/Macroindicators/charts-january-2018.ashx?la=en

A January 2018 report on macroeconomic indicators in Nepal published by the IMF contains the division between “oil imports” and “non-oil imports.” On first reading, this appears a division purely based on two different kinds of imports, that is, between two independent variables. However, the very specification of “oil” and its opposition with the vague “non-oil” variable reveals an international supply-chain that is not properly specialized when it arrives to Nepal, as is clearly evident in the vague collecting of every import besides oil within the “non-oil” bracket.

As a result, a problem is the impossibility, in the very event of rendering non-oil imports “visible” to someone like a customs officer for instance, of evaluating each individual imported object on its own. Perhaps an accounting of the objects (their number, their price) occurs, but there is no deeper contemplation of their qualities and purpose right at the point/border before they enter Nepal and the Nepali market.

Also as a result, the Nepali market cannot "anticipate" which objects are being imported based on the customs processes that occur at its border; the broadest division between oil and non-oil characterizes the whole presentation of imported objects in Nepal in too important a way. It is in light of this problem that the increase in oil imports, which according to the IMF report seems to be a real trend in Nepal in recent years, must be thought of. For the increase in oil imports could mean that any attempt at differentiating the objects within the non-oil group may be ignored.