Nepal has entered its fourth decade of planned development begun in 1956 with the launching of its 'First Plan' which, like all subsequent 'Plans', was contingent on foreign aid. One result of this dependence on foreign aid for its industrial development in particular, is that machine based manufacturing, at least up to the latter half of the 1970s, has tended to be the preserve of the government, even in those fields of manufacturing usually associated with the private rather than public sector of production, leather footwear for example.
