Nepal will sign OBOR agreement soon: Mahara

Kathmandu, Apr. 28: Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara Friday said that Nepal would sign the China proposed 'One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative' agreement soon.

"The government is of the view that the OBOR is a very good initiative that helps the region to boost the economic and technical cooperation. We are in the final stage to ink this initiative from our side," he said while addressing a seminar on 'Belt and Road Initiative and South Asia'.

According to the DPM, as connectivity and trade are Nepal's priority, the country can benefit a lot from this initiative.

He also noted that Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda in his recent visit to china proposed Kerung-Kathmandu-Pokhara-Lumbini railway to be a part of OBOR.

Chinese ambassador to Nepal Yu Hong said that the initiative's focus was on infrastructure development and policy stability.

"There should be political and policy stability from the central to provincial level in order to attract investment and move forward in development works. Development itself provides strong social base for political stability," she said.

She said that China would support Nepal in infrastructure development and international trade.

Yu stated that as a huge investment was needed for the infrastructure and connectivity projects, coordination and cooperation among the neighbours was needed.

China is creating links to South Asia through China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor.   

Former Nepal's permanent representative to the United Nations Madhu Raman Acharya said that OBOR was a win-win project for both China and South Asia.

"The South Asian Countries will gain from OBOR through economic corridors, trade, investment and tourism," he said.

According to him, OBOR is taken as a development alternative in Asia, and Beijing Consensus has been considered as the counter to the Washington Consensus.

Acharya said that all the five pillars of OBOR – policy coordination, infrastructure development and connectivity, trade facilitation, financial integration and people to people ties – were important for South Asia.

China has signed Memorandum of Understanding with 40 countries for the initiative and employed significant political, diplomatic and economic resources for this concept. Nepal is yet to sign the MoU.

Silk Road Fund, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, China Development Bank and Exim Bank of China are providing financial support to the initiative.

Experts say that being a partner in the initiative, Nepal would have opportunity to diversify its international trade and reduce over-dependence of trade and transit on India.

Director of Institute of South Asian Studies, School of International Studies at Sichuan University Professor Dr. Dai Yonghong said that China was the largest source of FDI in the recent years and considered that it was responsibility to support neighbouring countries in their development and progress.

"South Asia has the largest market for infrastructure. As large amount money and expertise is needed for the development of such infrastructure, Chinese support will be meaningful in this regard," he said.

Economist Madan Kumar Dahal said that although gestation period for the OBOR would be relatively longer with binding critical constraints, the success of OBOR would be an unparalleled departure to establishing a 'new world economic order' ensuring economic prosperity of 4.4 billion population in the region.