Dr. Bishwao Paudel has officially taken the oath as the 18th Governor of Nepal Rastra Bank. The oath was administered by Chief Justice Prakashman Singh Raut during a special ceremony held on Wednesday.
His appointment was confirmed by the Cabinet on Tuesday. Known for his deep knowledge of Nepal’s economic history, Paudel is now tasked with reviving a slow economy and stabilizing the banking sector affected by rising bad loans.
Despite losing the 2079 parliamentary election from Chitwan-1 to RSP’s Hari Dhakal, Paudel returned to teaching before being appointed as Governor under the Nepali Congress quota. He had previously served as the Vice-Chair of the National Planning Commission.
Paudel has a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He also has a strong academic and professional background in natural resource management, labor economics, and economic history. Earlier, he completed his undergraduate engineering degree from China, where he first became interested in economics.
He has held several high-level advisory roles, including Senior Economic Advisor at the Ministry of Finance, and has chaired boards such as ICIMOD and Colombo’s Planning Council. He has also worked with Millennium Challenge Corporation Nepal and was a faculty member at Kathmandu University School of Management.
Dr. Paudel’s diverse experience and academic strength make him one of the most capable young economists to lead Nepal’s central bank in a challenging time.
