Kathmandu - Latest News Update, Information, Photos & Videos on Kathmandu at Lokmat Times

Nepal and China signed the transit protocol in Beijing on April 29, 2019 during the visit of President Bidya Devi Bhandari, The Kathmandu Post said in a report on Wednesday.The transit protocol allows Nepal access to seven Chinese sea and land ports for third-country trade. So far, all of Nepal's third-country trade takes place via India.After completing all domestic procedures, Nepal, on August 9, had notified China and had been waiting for a notification from Beijing.Informed officials said on Wednesday that China notified the Nepali Embassy in Beijing on December 25.The embassy then forwarded the notification to Kathmandu and acknowledged the same to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, said officials."Now the deck is clear for Nepali businesspersons to conduct third-country trade via China," The Kathmandu Post quoted Navaraj Dhakal, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, as saying, adding: "But there are challenges ahead."There were major concerns about infrastructure on the Nepali side, the lack of a trained workforce, and also a language barrier."We do not know how much time it will take for businesses to start importing goods from the nearest Chinese seaports," said Dhakal. "We also do not know the cost of consignments from Chinese seaports to Nepal."The nearest Chinese seaport is Tianjin, which is 4,000 km from the Nepal border four times the distance between Birgunj and Kolkata in India.According to Prakash Karki, president of Nepal Freight Forwarders Association, language could pose as a major issue while dealing with the Chinese."We are habituated to importing goods via India, where the language is not a problem," Karki told The Kathmandu Post. "But since we have never imported goods from China, we don't exactly know what the advantages or disadvantages will be."Nepal only started looking to China for the possibility of third-country trade after the Indian border blockade of 2015.During his visit to Beijing in 2016, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli signed the Transit and Transportation Agreement aiming to break Nepal's complete dependence on India for third-country trade.But it took almost three years to sign the protocol for the agreement( With inputs from IANS )

KathmanduFOLLOW

Kathmandu, Latest News

Following the confirmation of the coronavirus case in Nepal, officials have said that two more people were suspected to have been infected with the virus, that has so far claimed the lives of 56 people in China, the epicentre of the outbreak. ...

The Department of Tourism here on Tuesday formed a probe committee to investigate the death of eight Indian tourists who lost their lives due to possible unconsciousness in a hotel room of a resort in Daman, a tourist destination near Kathmandu, on t ...

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his cabinet colleagues on Tuesday condoled the untimely death of eight Keralites at a hotel in Nepal. ...

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has urged the Ministry of External Affairs to intervene for rendering all possible assistance to the families and friends of the eight Indian tourists, who were declared dead after being found unconscious in the ...

Eight tourists from Kerala have been found dead in a hotel in Nepal, Union Minister for State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan confirmed on Tuesday. ...

Nepal has initiated health screenings of passengers flying in from China, Japan, and Thailand - the three nations where several patients have been tested positive for mysterious coronavirus, officials said on Friday. ...

The arrest of as many as 122 Chinese nationals in one of the biggest crackdown on crimes by foreign nationals in the Himalayan country last year has revealed that groups committing major online frauds earlier established in Southeast Asia have now be ...

Ten months after signing the Protocol on Implementing the Agreement on Transit and Transportation between Nepal and China, Beijing has officially notified Kathmandu that it has completed all domestic legal procedures which means that it would come in ...