We are now officially facing an economic slowdown. The Nepal Rastra Bank's economic report for August-September records a drop in government spending, including development expenditure, a slump in resource mobilisation, and an upswing in inflation. Overall government spending grew by just 9.7 percent to Rs 6.25 billion, compared with 26 percent growth in the same period last year. The unusual spending slowdown in the early months of the fiscal year is because of delays in disbursement, which was slower this year because of the extra time it took in getting the budget approved by parliament. However, a worrying trend is that over 58 percent of the allocation was spent on recurrent expenses and only 12 percent on development projects. Regular spending dropped by 4.3 percent while the drop in spending on development was 11 percent.