Work to ease cross-border trade underway: Ambassador Hou

 Kathmandu, July 12

China has said that a process to facilitate trade with Nepal is its priority and authorities on both sides of the border are working to ease the movement of cargo containers across the border.

China wants to facilitate more cargo containers' entry into Nepal. Authorities are trying to find more efficient ways to send or bring in more goods to Nepal, said Ambassador of China to Nepal Hou Yanqi at a virtual interaction with the journalists on Monday morning.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 more than one-and-a-half years ago, China has shut its borders. While many other border points have come into operation, that with Nepal are only partially opened. That has troubled Nepali traders as they have been unable to transport goods in time and food items were damaged on the way.

According to Hou, it was an unfortunate situation. "It was very difficult for Tibet Autonomous Region to control the coronavirus pandemic due to high plateau and short supply of oxygen. Both the governments in Beijing and Tibet have implemented strict measures to control the spread of the deadly virus," she said.

After gaining control over the initial outbreak of the virus, China had allowed one-way cargo movement to Nepal so that the latter could receive the supply of critical health equipment.

Currently, 10 containers from Tatopani and 20 from Rasuwagadhi-Keyrung border are entering Nepal in a day. Hou said that the import of goods from China is also restricted due to the lack of space on the Nepal side.  

"This is not a political but a technical issue," she said while noting that China was concerned about making the border point fully operational at the earliest so that smooth transportation of goods could happen.

Likewise, responding to inadequate transparency in vaccine procurement by Nepal from a Chinese company, Hou said that vaccine procurement is guided by international norms and practices and therefore, there couldn't be any abnormal practices between the two countries.

"China is supplying vaccines to about 100 countries across the globe and there is no other example of cooperation. There couldn't be any exceptional case for Nepal, there will be same type of vaccine cooperation," she said.

She mentioned that Nepal is an important partner for China to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and bilateral cooperation of the two countries in various fields has made positive progress.

Kathmandu Durbar High School Reconstruction Project has been completed and handed over to Nepal by China Aid.

According to Hou, pre-feasibility study of the Tokha-Chhahare Tunnel Project has been finished. The construction of Pokhara International Airport and Gautam Buddha International Airport is progressing well. The construction of the third phase of China Aid Araniko Highway Long-term Opening Maintenance Project has been started. Trans-Himalayan multi-dimensional connectivity network is gradually taking shape.

She also stated that China-South Asia Poverty Reduction and Development Cooperation Centre was established recently in Chengdu of China. It aims to help share Chinese experiences on poverty alleviation with countries like Nepal.

"Just as President Xi Jinping reiterated, China will always be a member of the developing world. No matter how the international situation changes, we will always be a reliable friend and sincere partner of developing countries," she said.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 13 July 2021.