Bhutan, the small country that is trapped between India and China, may be best known for the “rough national happiness”, the alternative measure That the country claims a more comprehensive understanding of economic development than GDP.
But the country wants to be known for more than just spiritual tourism and Himalaya mountains. Bhutan now hopes to attract foreign investments, promote new industries and to enter the global economy.
It is a steep hill to climb for the isolated Himalaya land, which is recently switched to A Brain outflow Problem as young Bhutani trips abroad for new opportunities.
“Geography is a challenge for us, demography is a challenge for us,” said Ujjwal Deep Daal, CEO of Druk Holdings and Investments (DHI), Bhutan’s Souign Wealth Fund. Bhutan and Dhi have to “learn to deal with the world while we move,” he added.
But Bhutan and his sovereign asset fund -Tiny according to global standards -will use the strengths of the country, including cheaper and widespread hydropower, to feed investments in calculation centers and Bitcoin mining. Key to the country of the country plan is the gelPhu Mindfulness City, a new zone that Bhutan connects to companies in South and Southeast Asia.
“Size doesn’t matter”
Most prominent Sovereign assets– Like those from Norway, Saudi Arabia or Singapore, gigantic global investors are. These funds move hundreds of billions of dollars money collected from pensions, natural resources or foreign exchange reserves to search for high returns and to invest in strategic industries.
DHI is smaller compared to these global giants. Much smaller.
DHI was founded at the end of 2007 and has an managed assets of around 3 billion US dollars and has the shares in 24 different Bhutan companies.
For comparison: Temasek in Singapore has a fortune of 300 billion US dollars, with the best -known companies in the country like Singapore Airlines and DBS.
But Daal sees opportunities in Dhi’s small size. “Size doesn’t matter,” he said; Instead, DHI can concentrate on “efficiency and our growth”. Nevertheless, he sees Temasek as a model for DHI.
“We largely look at Temasek in terms of government in relation to sales.” We have to see how DHI is going in a way that is supplemented with the challenges. “
Bhutan’s happiness and brain drain
Bhutan calculated Gross national happiness through a survey of 300 questions that have been managed every few years. The Last The GNH index released in May 2023 reported a score of 0.781 for 2022, higher than the 0.743 registered in 2010.
The country’s per capita bip grew a severe decline in 2020 in 2020, the height of the pandemic in 2020.
Pessimism about the economy has led the country to run a Brain outflow with a population of less than 800,000. Around 13,500 bhutan, which corresponded to 1.6% of the country’s entire population, moved to Australia in 2023. The country, which is still mainly covered with forests, has fought the decline in income, a lack of employment opportunities and increasing youth unemployment.
Tourism is one of Bhutan’s main sources of income, but does not yet have to recover from the Covid pandemic. The country reported 145,000 tourist attacks last year, less than half of the 315,599 arrival in 2019. The country also has a mixed view of the tourism industry and promotes a “high -quality, low -quality” tourism model to avoid the burden of the country’s infrastructure.
Big bets
DHI manages several companies that are of crucial importance for the country’s economy such as the Bhutan Power Power Corporation, the Bank of Bhutan and Bhutan Telecom. And Daal believes that DHI can be a platform to create a niche for Bhutan in today’s AI and the Internet economy.
For example, Daal, who has a background in engineering and hydropower, hopes that Bhutan can be a place where green energy companies can research “interesting technologies” such as pump storage and hydrogen performance and test their commercial viability.
“We can quickly test it in Bhutan, solve the problem in Bhutan and take it globally or regionally,” argued Dahal.
He focuses particularly on HydropowerNow Bhutan’s main source for electricity generation. Bhutan at the moment Has 2.5 gigawatt current capacity and another 3 gigawatts under construction.
DHI also makes some unconventional bets. Bhutan is one of the world’s largest sovereign owners of Bitcoin. The country started reducing cryptocurrency in 2019 when it was worth almost 10,000 US dollars. It is now worth around 97,000 US dollars from May 7, 2025.
Bitcoin mining is usually energy -intensive, but Dahal claims that Bhutan’s crypto mining helps to compensate for carbon emissions elsewhere due to the use of hydropower and other green energy.
“Bitcoin is parallel to digital gold,” said Dahal, noting that the country’s cryptocurrency strategy is part of a diversified approach for alternative investments.
As an investment arm of Bhutan, DHI also supports the development of Gelephu Mindfulness City, a special administrative region that hopes to be an economic corridor in South and Southeast Asia. The city, which extends around 2,500 square kilometers, tries to combine economic growth with sustainability and holistic life and offers space such as healthcare, technology and green energy.
“We try to bring an innovation strategy in DHI to build startups with global founders, academics and innovators and bring them together to build a startup culture and economy,” said Dahal.
This story was originally on Fortune.com