“Size does not matter”: small Bhutan sovereignist background banks in green energy and bitcoin

Bhutan, the small land without land between India and China, is perhaps better known for “gross national happiness”, the alternative measure The country claims that it provides a more complete understanding of economic development than GDP.

But the country wants to be known for more than spiritual tourism and the Himalayan mountains. Bhutan now hopes to attract foreign investments, foster new industries and enter the global economy.

It is an abrupt hill to climb the isolated country of the Himalayas, which has recently been affected The brain drain Problem as young Bhutanos travel abroad to get new opportunities.

“Geography is a challenge for us, demographics are a challenge for us,” said Ujjwal Deep Dahal, CEO of Druk Holdings and Investments (DHI), Bhutan’s sovereignist wealth fund. Bhutan and Dhi need to “learn to relate to the world as we move,” he added.

However, Bhutan and his sovereignist wealth fund by world standards expect to take advantage of the country’s strengths, including cheap and widespread hydroelectrics, which, at the same time, can feed investments in Bitcoin data centers and mining centers. Country key layout It is the GELEHU Mindfulness City, a new area to connect Bhutan with southern and southern -East Asian companies.

“The size doesn’t matter”

The most prominent background of sovereignist wealth– Like those of Norway, Saudi Arabia or Singapore: they are gigantic world investors. These funds move hundreds of billions of dollars of funds, obtained from pensions, natural resources or forex reservations, to look for high returns and invest in strategic industries.

Dhi is smaller compared to these global giants. Much smaller.

Founded at the end of 2007, DHI has about $ 3 billion in management assets and has participations in 24 different Bhutan companies.

In comparison, Singapore Temasek has $ 300 million in management assets, with stakes in the country’s most prominent companies, such as Singapore Airlines and DBS.

But Dahal sees the small size of Dhi. “The size doesn’t matter,” he said; Instead, DHI can focus on “efficiency and way of growing”. Still, he looks feared as a model for Dhi.

“We look largely at themasek, in terms of governance, in terms of divestments. But, according to this, Bhutan and Singapore’s economy are completely different,” said Dahal. “We need to look at DHI execution in a complementary way to the challenges.”

The happiness and drainage of Bhutan’s brain

Bhutan calculate Dirty national happiness through a survey of 300 questions administered every few years. It most recent The GNH index, released in May 2023, reported a score of 0.781 by 2022, higher than 0.743 reported in 2010.

The country’s per capita GDP went from $ 2,435 to $ 3,711 during the same period, but experienced a strong decrease by 2020, the height of the pandemic.

The pessimism over the economy has caused the country, with a population of less than 800,000, to be through a cerebral drainage. Around 13,500 Bhutanos, equal to 1.6% of the entire population of the country, moved to Australia in 2023. The country, which is still covered mostly in the forest, has fought against the decrease in revenue, lack of employment opportunities and the increase in youth unemployment.

Tourism is one of Bhutan’s main sources of income, but it still has to be recovered from Covid pandemic. The country reported 145,000 tourist arrivals last year, less than half of the 315,599 arrivals registered in 2019. The country also has a mixed view of the tourism industry, promoting a “valuable and low impact” tourism model “to prevent the country’s infrastructure stressing.

Great bets

Dhi manages several key companies for the country’s economy, such as Bhutan Power Corporation, Bank of Bhutan and Bhutan Telecom. And Dahal believes that DHI can be a platform for cutting a niche for Bhutan in today’s AI and the Internet economy.

For example, Dahal, who has a background in engineering and hydroelectric, hopes that Bhutan can be a place where green energy companies can explore “interesting technologies”, such as pump storage and hydrogen power and prove their commercial viability.

“We can try Bhutan quickly, solve the problem in Bhutan and take -global or regional,” said Dahal.

Is especially focused on hydroelectricNow Bhutan’s main source of electrical generation. Bhutan presently It has 2.5 Gigawatts of current capacity and 3 additional Gigawatts under construction.

Dhi also makes some more conventional bets. Bhutan is one of the biggest sovereign headlines in Bitcoin. The country began the cryptocurrency in 2019, when it was worth less than $ 10,000. It is now worth around $ 97,000 on May 7, 2025.

Bitcoin mining is usually intensive in energy, but Dahal claims that Bhutan’s Crypto Crypt mining, due to its use of hydroelectric and other green energy, helps to make up for carbon emissions elsewhere.

“Bitcoin is a parallel to digital gold,” Dahal said, emphasizing that the country’s cryptocurrency strategy is part of a diversified approach to alternative investments.

Dhi, as a Bhutan’s investment arm, also supports the development of Gelfhu Mindfulness City, a special administrative region that hopes to be a economic runner south and south -East Asian. The city, which covers about 2,500 square kilometers, seeks to combine economic growth with sustainability and holistic life, and offers space to companies such as health, technology and green energy.

“We are trying to incorporate an innovation strategy in DHI to create startups with founders, academics and innovative worlds and to bring them together to create a culture and a startup economy,” said Dahal.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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