Kathmandu,
Sept. 8
Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi who arrived in the Capital on Sunday evening for a
3-day official visit is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with Minister for
Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali on Monday.
He will
also call on President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on
the same day.
During his
meeting with the President and PM, Wang will discuss about the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) and China funded projects in Nepal.
There will
be delegation-level talks between the two foreign ministers.
Modernisation
of the border points at Rasuwagadhi and Tatopani and development of dry port at
Timure of Rasuwa district are the agenda of discussion between the foreign
ministers bilateral meeting, said the MoFA.
This is the
first visit of the Chinese foreign minister after the formation of present
government. Earlier, Wang had made visited Nepal in 2015 to participate in the
conference of Nepal’s reconstruction in the immediate aftermath of the
devastating Gorkha Earthquake.
In August
2014, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Krishna Bahadur Mahara, as a
special envoy of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ had visited
China and held a bilateral meeting with him.
Similarly,
during FM Gyawali’s visit to China last year, Nepal and China had agreed to
implement all the past agreements, including those signed during the visit of
erstwhile PM Oli and Prachanda.
The two
neighbours had agreed to cooperate in the development of cross-border railways,
roads, aviation, communication and transmission lines.
Upper
Trishuli Hydropower, Kathmandu Ring Road Improvement, Larcha and Timure Frontier
Inspection Station, Pokhara International Airport, Syaprubensi-Rasuwagadhi Road
upgradation, Civil Service Hospital upgradation and Kodari Highway upgradation
and restoration of bordering bridges at Kodari and Rasuwagadhi are the major
ongoing Chinese projects in Nepal.
Under the
BRI, Nepal expects Chinese financial and technical cooperation in large
infrastructure projects like hydroelectricity, railways, roads, bridges, tunnel
and irrigation.
Minister
Wang will also call on Nepal Communist Party Chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal
‘Prachanda’ and Nepali Congress Chairman Sher Bahadur Deuba on Monday. He will
leave Kathmandu for Beijing on Tuesday.
Nepal is
waiting for a top level visit from China and wants to welcome President Xi Jinping.
Although there have been positive response from the Chinese side, the date is
not been fixed yet. Although there had been multiple top level Nepali visit to
China, there are no reciprocal visit from the latter since the then Premier Wen
Jiabao visited Nepal in January 2012.
However,
there were high level visits of State Councilor Yang Jiechi in 2013, Member of
Political Bureau and Secretariat of Communist Party of China Liu Qibao, State
Councilor and Defense Minister General Chang Wanquan in 2017, and Minister for
Culture and Tourism Luo Shugang in 2018.
China is
the second largest trading partner of Nepal and second largest source country
for tourist arrival.
The size of
trade between the two countries has reached Rs. 207 billion in 2018/19. Nepal
exported goods worth Rs. 2.10 billion to China and imported goods of Rs. 205
billion. Nepal wants to improve its trade balance with the northern neighbor
and has been asking the latter to provide preference to the products that Nepal
has comparative and competitive advantage in the Chinese Market.
Likewise,
about 153,633 Chinese tourists came to Nepal in 2018 which is 13.10 per cent of
the total tourist arrival in Nepal. The country aims at welcoming more Chinese
tourists during the Visit Nepal Year 2020.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 9 September 2019.
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